The Strad - Session report

"…It would take a stony heart, listening to Dego's playing, to resist the extroverted Paganini-meets-Brahms appeal of the Busoni Concerto…

Indeed, her approach to both this and the Brahms on the new album illuminates just how deeply Busoni was influenced by Brahms's example, working in some near-direct quotations, and thus also where he went his own way with a lightness of spirit that he struggled to emulate in his later music."

The Strad
(March 2024)

Brahms & Busoni: Violin Concertos (Chandos)

"Brahms and Busoni are a pairing less likely than, say, Brahms and Liszt. Yet here is a coupling of Violin Concertos that invites some considerations of similarities. The common protagonist is the remarkable Italian-born violinist Francesca Dego, whose performances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Dalia Stasevska are ravishingly pure, precise and purposeful, with a radiance and opulent virtuosity that embraces an overall Romantic ethos.

If anything, the younger Busoni’s concerto inhabits a more flamboyant post-Lisztian world, freely bound and thematically impetuous, with a slow movement oozing unbound passion and a finale that verges on showtime. Dego throws herself fully into it, as she does the Brahms, though in the latter with more poetically manicured sheen. Stasevska preempts that in the distinctive finesse of her Brahms opening. The real magic lies in performances that delight in the unexpected complementarity of two distinctive musical minds."

The Scotsman - ☆☆☆☆☆
(February 2024)

MOZART VIOLIN CONCERTO N.3 WITH THE UTAH SYMPHONY

“Italian violinist Francesca Dego was the evening’s soloist, bringing bright energy to her performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3. This concerto is more about expressive elegance than pure technique and Dego saved the virtuosic flourishes for her encore, the Polish Caprice of Grażyna Bacewicz.

The violinist nonetheless impressed with her crisp articulation and the purity of her high notes. She brought a beautiful cantabile quality to the slow movement and engaging humor to the finale, like someone sharing a funny story at a party…”

Utah Arts Review
(January 2024)

Mozart Piano Quartets (Chandos)

“The lineup is something of a supergroup of rising soloists - the violinist Francesca Dego, violist Timothy Ridout, cellist Laura van der Heijden and pianist Federico Colli. Together they are as balanced a team as one could ask for, Ridout’s viola singing out as warmly and almost as brightly as Dego’s violin so that their exchanges are ideally weighted. The playing is imaginative and detailed; repeated sections are never done the same way twice, and the four play off each other in adding the odd ornament or decoration. There’s no real star: this is real chamber music…”

The Guardian - Classical album of the week - ☆☆☆☆☆

(August 2023)

Gramophone - The musician and the score

Mozart’s First Piano Quartet, K478. 

“Of course, we know the story about Mozart losing the publisher’s commission for this quartet because it was too difficult for amateurs,” muses Dego, “and it’s true - but the difficulty is also musical. You need to understand what it’s saying here, and create all the different voices. It isn’t one of the sight-readable things that were fashionable at that time. It has all the theatre, it has all of Mozart, it’s extraordinary.”

The Strad - Sentimental Work

“When asked for their favourite composer, a lot of musicians will say ‘whoever I’m playing right now.’ For me, it wouldn’t be true – it’s always Brahms! In particular I’ve performed his Violin Concerto around 50 times and whenever I play it I feel mountains of energy of all different kinds. It’s been a part of me since I first played it aged 15, and I feel as though I’ve matured with it”

Archi magazine Cover Feature

«Norrington mi diceva: “Se non sei in grado di sederti per terra e far ridere un bambino non puoi suonare Mozart”» 

Mozart Violin Concertos Volume II

“Dego’s playing creates a spirit of delighted, sometimes whimsical improvisation. Semiquaver runs are an invitation to ever new flights of fancy. With no sense of micromanagement, articulation and dynamics are never predictable, repeated phrases never mere repetitions. Dego’s spontaneous touches of ornamentation - often where you don’t expect them - made me smile… If you think you’ve heard these concertos once too often, this could be just the tonic.“

— Gramophone (October 2022)

Mozart Violin Concertos Volume II

“… listening to Francesca Dego, Roger Norrington and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra responding with microfine nuances of phrasing, articulation and dynamic to Mozart's Salzburg style at its most sparkling and invigorating, takes this music to a whole new level. Dego's finespun tone, exquisite timing and enchanting musical inquisitiveness, not to mention her delightfully spontaneous decorating of musical lines, combine to create an uplifting sense of the music being composed as it goes along … the RSNO's vibrantly alive, texturally enchanted playing under Norrington's inspired direction, [is] captured in state-of-the-art sound. He could hardly have wished for a finer recorded swansong than this Mozart series.”

— ☆☆☆☆☆ Album of the month BBC Music Magazine, (October 2022)

Strings Magazine

“There are so many details that jump out in the recordings—the interplay between the first and second violins, the way the forte and piano sections nestle into each other, the way the flutes and horns play with both fun and beauty—that combined with Dego’s fresh, inspired playing and the audiophile-quality recording, it is like listening to three-dimensional Mozart. Stylistically, this body of work is a striking example of the intersection of the old and new traditions, using modern instruments but infused with Norrington’s more than 60 years of research and experience…”

Bologne Concerto at Wolf Trap with the National Symphony

“Dego entered with a crisp, full tone and flawless technique. She soared up and down the fingerboard through brilliant scale passages, preserving the integrity of her sound and nuance of musical line. In the second movement, Dego played with a deep, sonorous, and rich tone. She was especially impressive in the haunting cadenza at the end of the movement, as the heavy rain creates an almost religious atmosphere throughout the hall. The concerto concluded with a spirited third movement, the joyful quality evident through Dego’s vivacious and buoyant tone.”

— Washington Classical Review (July 2021)

Sibelius Concerto with The Hallé

“… a spellbinding performance of the score, complete with the feeling of Nordic chill and tension it can produce. Italian soloist, now London based, Dego demonstrated effortlessly her remarkable technique and expressive gifts combined with what is clearly a love of the work and I was captivated lock stock and barrel. Sonorous and alluringly burnished, the tone of her instrument a Francesco Ruggeri (Cremona, 1697) flowed tellingly through the hall and I relished every single note… it was soloist Francesca Dego who stole the show with a quite sensational performance of the Sibelius concerto.”

— Seen and Heard international (March 2022)

Mendelssohn Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra

“…one of the finest performances of Mendelssohn’s Concerto I’ve heard in the concert hall for many years. There was nothing routine in this account, its performance meticulously prepared yet with an ink-still wet quality from the soloist. Dego combines a formidable technique with exceptional musicianship and brought to the first movement passion, playfulness and rumination, all delivered with a sureness of tone whether richly sonorous or silvery. From her Francesco Ruggeri violin (1697) she is incapable of producing an ugly sound. One only regretted the absence of a break after the first movement as this listener wanted to applaud after such a focussed performance. She was sweet toned in the wistful Andante, her ‘song without words’ finely spun and holding us all in thrall with her magic, all seemingly effortlessly achieved. A cheeky grin accompanied the throwaway gestures at the start of the finale (not as homicidal as some accounts can be), Dego now demonstrably enjoying the movement’s unbuttoned character, its near ceaseless momentum dispatched with aplomb.”

— Bachtrack (March 2022)

The Strad Cover Feature

“For Italian violinist Francesca Dego, the opportunity to perform and record on Paganini’s “Il Cannone” Guarneri Del Gesù of 1743 was a dream come true. She shares her experiences with the rarely accessed instrument - which came complete with security guards and its own dressing room”

Musica Magazine Cover Feature

“Primo album per Chandos per la violinista italiana, che costruisce un programma attorno al mito paganiniano, con le sue propaggini novecentesche e contemporanee, utilizzando lo strumento più celebrato del grande musicista genovese”

The Guardian - Facing the Music

“The young violinist on her musical inspirations – Busoni, mezzosoprano Anita Rachvelishvili, solo Bach under the fake stars and Rossini under the real ones”