„But Sunday's concert had a fabulous opener: the debut of German cellist Johannes Moser in Haydn's Cello Concerto in C major. Moser played with agile brilliance and vast expressive character. Let's have him back in Dvorak, Elgar or any number of cello blockbusters.“
Donald Rosenberg, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland
Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst, July 2007, Haydn – Cello Concerto in C Major

Grandeur with Cello
Johannes Moser shines with the Munich Philharmonic
Harald Eggebrecht
February 24, 2007 - South German News No. 46
The special thing about music is its disappearance. CDs only capture a version of a piece that has already happened. While this can be repeated indefinitely as a vampiresque past, it is never new. Each concert, however, is a new birth, even for the most well-known works; this happened with Schumann’s cello concerto in A minor at the Philharmonic with the young cello star Johannes Moser. This concerto, written in 1850, but first performed 4 years after Schumann’s death in 1856, was perceived to be imprinted with illness and depression and a difficult work, until Pablo Casals introduced it to the concert halls of the world. Since then it has become part of the standard cello repertoire.
Soloists are usually comfortable with the expressive longing of the first movement “Nicht zu schnell”, and the inner poetry of the second movement “Langsam”, while the slightly crazy finale “Sehr lebhaft” poses technical and musical problems. Johannes Moser, an accomplished communicator with the orchestra, conductor and the audience, as well as a spontaneous virtuoso of the first caliber, laid out the main movement not so much as a lament but as a “wildly presented” piece (as from Mahler). He was able to portray the intimacy of the second movement with a wonderfully rounded, energetic sound in a soft duet with cellist Michael Hell. The climactic Finale evolved as a surprising, quick, humorous parlando. Moser performed this intimidating movement, which in most cases comes out haltingly, with ironic grandeur; and Christian Thielemann and the Philharmonic accompanied him splendidly. Schumann specified that for this concerto, the orchestra should be only the accompaniment. Johannes Moser showed his appreciation for the thunderous applause by playing, in perfect baroque style, the Sarabande from Bach’s 1st Solo Suite. Schumann’s overture to Genoveva started out somewhat sluggish but showed presence and vitality in the fast part. Everyone is mesmerized by Christian Thielemann conducting Richard Strauss. The way he and the orchestra played “Also Sprach Zarathustra” in an expansive dimension, without compromising the harmony with noise and banging, was simply marvelous. It began with the cleverly building sunrise, which some orchestras play in such an aggravated way that it seems the crescendo has already passed. Also breathtaking was the warm energy projected by the strings in the “großen Sehnsucht”, as well as the carefully crafted “Wissenschafts” fugue.
Under Thielemann’s direction, the “Tanzlied” did not come across as a rousing waltz but rather a grand, swinging emotion, brilliantly executed by the first violins, lead by Lorenz Nasturica. A grandiose performance, which was, much to Thielemann’s justified chagrin, almost ruined at the end by an irritating cough.
(translated from German)

„Bewundernswert sind die reich schattierten Dialoge beider Instrumente. Ausgeglichenheit und Beherrschtheit ohne den Schatten eines Verzichts auf künstlerische Ausdrucksfülle gehören offenbar zur Karriereplanung des Cellisten Johannes Moser, der 1979 in eine Münchner Musikerfamilie hineingeboren wurde.“
FAZ, 22.07.2006 (Besprechung der Duo-CD mit Klavierpartner Paul Rivinius „Cello Sonatas“ mit Werken von Dmitri Shostakovich, Moisey Weinberg und Boris Tchaikovsky)

„Johannes Moser verlebendigt Cellosonaten von Weinberg, Schostakowitsch, Tschaikowsky. Herrlich der Ton, vital artikuliert.“
Harald Eggebrecht / Süddeutsche Zeitung: CD des Jahres / Bester Interpret