Browse: Michael Alexander Willens (conductor)

The Cologne-based period instrument ensemble responds to Michael Alexander Willens’s insightful direction with affectionate warmth and incisive attentiveness. Roland Brautigam, meanwhile, deploys... — BBC Music Magazine, February 2023, 4 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 5 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

The Kölner Akademie is in period instrument guise, and the sound is often suitably thrilling and zippy. — BBC Music Magazine, March 2024, 3 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 4 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

The warm period sonorities of the Kölner Akademie – pure-toned strings and downy flutes – help to place Emilie Mayer as a strongly independent contemporary of Mendelssohn and Schumann in this... — Gramophone Magazine, December 2023 More…

Willens and his Cologne forces do it proud, more closely recorded than a highly regarded rival (an Editor’s Choice nearly a decade ago) and with a prominent harpsichord continuo that clatters... — Gramophone Magazine, February 2024 More…

For an overall impression of Stamitz’s style here, think of Haydn in one of his feistier moods. The real star of this album, though, is the Le jour variable Symphony, which is like an earthier... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2022, 4 out of 5 stars More…

There is a lot to enjoy in these wonderfully upbeat works by two pupils of JS Bach, whose influence is not hard to discern. They benefit here from energetic, enthusiastic performances. — BBC Music Magazine, November 2020, 5 out of 5 stars More…

In both works, [Willens] strives for warmth from his modest forces, and tempos are never excessively fast. In the first oratorio, he employs emphatic accents and clear dynamic changes to carry... — Fanfare, Jan/Feb 2023 More…

While Brautigam and Willens have sometims tended to favour tempos distinctly on the fast side, that isn't the case here: these are finely-judged performances throughout, in which every detail... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2014, 5 out of 5 stars More…