Alfred Brendel, pianist: ‘Borstlap’s Fantasia captures splendidly the spirit of Liszt’s late music, and develops it in a personal and convincing way.’
Libor Pesek, Conductor Laureate of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra: ‘I was immediately captured by the way he creates music. John Borstlap is the rare sort of personality who uses musical language to express, with great originality, his spiritual message.’
Lukas Foss, composer, principal conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, NY: ‘John Borstlap is a first-rate composer indeed, one of the finest in the Netherlands.’
Richard Stamp, principal conductor of the Academy of London: ‘His music is at once profound and deeply felt but also expertly crafted. In short, it has something to say.’
John Casken, Prof. of Music, University of Manchester: ‘I really admire the musical fluency of expression and the way he revisits the familiar but constantly turns it in new directions. The technical resources necessary for this to happen in a convincing musical way are quite formidable.’
René Koering, Surintendant de la Musique de l’Orchestre et Opéra National de Montpellier: ‘Psyche shows a virtuosic orchestral writing, also in terms of harmony… A very unusual and, in these times, daring work.’
Dr. Roger Scruton FBA, FRSL, philosopher in a.o. musical aesthetics: ‘I think he is one of the truly remarkable intellects of our time, a serious and inspired composer, and a person with an unusual grasp of the role of the artist in general, and the composer in particular in the cultural conditions that have developed in modern Europe.’
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang-Andreas Schultz, philosopher, musicologist, composer and lecturer at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg: ‘….. a brilliant thinker in the field of musical philosophy, as I could conclude from his great essay Recreating the Classical Tradition. Among the composers who seek new ways, I appreciate the music of John Borstlap as a very important voice.’
Prof. Dr. Andreas Dorschel, philosopher and lecturer in musical aesthetics, Head of the Institute for the Aesthetics of Music at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Graz: ‘Borstlap believes in the possibility of connecting with the classical-romantic tradition, and I understand his compositions as a convincing proof that nowadays such connection can be achieved, without reverting to the eclecticism of style copies or (postmodern) style collages. His music shows a composer who creates a music of highly sensual attractiveness, but who also has full intellectual mastery over the material which is his starting point.’