The star of the evening was Maurice Steger, for this brilliant young musician provides living proof that all of the clichés about the recorder are not true. To hear Maurice Steger perform is to experience how he can scatter acrobatic cascades of notes as Vivaldi’s capricious finch throughout the Tonhalle, how he can combine a weave of lines in an Adagio to create a perfect rainbow, how he can embody musical communication with subtle humor and wit, how he can utilize the interaction between work, ensemble and soloist to form a musical theater of the most entertaining kind – and together with the “Academie” to be answered in return by the warmth of the audience’s affection. Such charismatic performances are typical of popstars, but this is Maurice Steger, and his exuberant performances of Vivaldi or Telemann would not be out of place in the hit parade, and his cascades of notes have just the right frequency even to reach techno-ears …

Reinmar Wagner, ‘Musik & Theater’, Concert with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin at the Tonhalle in Zurich