Reviews

‘This is a powerful and extremely rewarding work which deserves the widest possible audience.’ 
Dominy Clements on The Wandering Jew, Musicweb International 2011

‘This project blew me away. Robert Saxton spent years writing his magnum opus, premiered on Radio 3 last July: an epic treatment of the Wandering Jew fable… Saxton’s tonal (or modal) musical language ranges from the cinematic spectacular to rapt spirituality.’ 
Richard Morrison, The Times

‘Robert Saxton’s viscerally energetic Fantazia, busily and brilliantly performed by a string quartet empathetic to the demanding textures of a powerhouse work which comes to a surprise ending of splendid inevitability.’ 
Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post, 2011

‘Carefully wrought and played with intense concentration, Saxton’s quartet is a substantial addition to the repertoire.’ 
Nick Kimberley on String Quartet No. 3, Evening Standard, 2011

‘The Maxwell Quartet … played Saxton’s String Quartet No. 3 (2011), capturing the contrasting character of each of the five movements with titles such as Winter Light and Dance. Ideas reveal and hide themselves in constant, delicate oscillation. In one (Sea Ground), he uses a passacaglia, mirroring the repeated yet changing action of the sea. This music, in this performance, had a mystery, delicacy and depth which made you want to hear it again immediately. What an exhilarating start to 2015.’ 
Fiona Maddocks, Observer, 2015

‘… Robert Saxton’s third String Quartet (premiered by the Ardittis in 2011), a superbly crafted work that navigates, like much of Saxton’s music, a wobbly bridge between tightly maintained and clearly articulated (mostly traditional) formal processes and the sense it conveys that everything might suddenly spiral off into unchained flights of extasy.’ 
Guy Dammann, Guardian, 2015

Presteigne Festival 2016: Composer in Residence

‘Based on the paintings by Stanley Spencer in Sandham Chapel in Hampshire, Saxton captured Spencer’s sense of mystical fantasy in a piece full of invention and striking writing for strings.’ 
Peter Reynolds on The Resurrection of the Soldiers, Hereford Times, 2016

The Piano Music of Robert Saxton: CD

‘Saxton’s music is dynamic and ever-evolving… All in all, a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a musical iconoclast’ Lynn René Bayley, The Art Music Lounge, 2018

‘… the two volumes of Hortus Musicae are new to disc and evince piano writing no less idiomatic and arguably more personal than before. The inspiration is that of a ‘musical garden’ in all its allegorical and metaphysical implications, with the five pieces which comprise the First Book (2013) embodying this in ingenious ways – not least the stealthy (Andrew Marvell-inspired) floral clock of Hortus Temporis, or synthesis of formal precision and expressive eloquence in Hortus Infinitatis.’

‘Saxton has long been a composer able to fuse serial and tonal elements without the results seeming at all contrived or inhibited. The two books of Hortus Musicae abound in evocative and arresting musical imagery which Hammond conveys as convincingly as she realises the not inconsiderable technical challenges. … Lullaby for Rosa (2016) … a further instance of how deftly Saxton integrates technical ingenuity within a context of limpid wistfulness.’ 
Richard Whitehouse, Arcana, 2018

‘… the set opens with dense and resonant textures dredged from the murky depths of the piano’s low range before sweeping across the piano. … The virtuoso No. 7 provides a fitting and dramatic conclusion.’ 
Pwyll ap Siôn, Gramphone, May 2018

‘Saxton is adept at creating complex yet magical sound-words, the very transparency of the writing adding to the luminous quality. These gardens are by turns rhythmic, dramatic, light-fuilled, spare and meditative, and dancing, each different but each have a very particular quality which helps to define Saxton’s art.’ 
Robert Hugill, Planet Hugill, April 2018

‘These two collections are enchanting: at once playful and serious, exploratory, intellectually vigorous and, very often, deeply poignant.’
Kate Wakeling on Hortus Musicae, BBC Music Magazine, August 2018

‘… Robert Saxton’s evocative A Little Prelude for John McCabe … one of the most aurally beautiful contributions, Saxton’s piece is all the more eloquent through its simplicity of compositional means, the overlapping descending fragments leading to a final, radiant, consonance.’ 
David DeBoor Canfield, Fanfare, July 2018

‘Saxton’s sixteen-minute tone poem is an exquisitely intense affair. Altering between quasi-static chordal passages and sections of breath-taking vehemence, the music evokes striking sonic imagery, some entangled in mist and hue, others bathing in resplendent sunlight.’
Jari Kallio on The Resurrection of the Soldiers, Aventures in Music, 2021

Portrait CD

‘… highly inventive and immediately involving; admirably concise without quite being aphoristic. Especially fascinating is the fifty piece, a hushed evocation of bell-like sounds which seems to slow time, before the music plunges back into a passionate finale.’ 
Kevin Mandry on Fantasy Pieces, British Music Society, 2023

‘… the visceral immediacy of Jacob and the Angels, then the ethereal interplay in Bells of Memory, leading into Quest with (as in the song-cycle) a sense of this music having come full-circle yet simultaneously setting out fresh possibilities – tonal and emotional – to be pursued in future compositions.’ 
Richard Whitehouse on Suite, Arcana, 2023

‘… Saxton opts for six continuous items whose fluidity of content and intuitive follow-through readily point up the various connotations of the title. That the closing piece seeks to provide a definite resolution while imparting a sense of open-endedness to the sequence overall is merely the most arresting facet of this engaging work.’ 
Richard Whitehouse on Fantasy Pieces, Arcana, 2023