VERPRECHEN (PROMISE) (2004)
“Versprechen (Promise) by Kati Agócs was a tour de force for the player, in this case, cellist, Rafael Popper-Keizer, who handled the challenges heroically. With incessant double stops and encompassing the full range of the cello (at one point, a leap of two octaves brought the cellist’s left hand within a couple of inches of the bow), Promise is gripping to watch and hear. The title [alludes to] that of a Lutheran chorale (Ist Gott mein Schild und Helfersmann) that was harmonized by J.S. Bach. Though presented abstractly at first, the chorale melody gradually emerges from the depths of the cello’s range to build to a hard-won D major chord.” - THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER, Review of Versprechen as performed by Dinosaur Annex, October 24, 2014 (Nick Dinnerstein)
“Kati Agócs’s Versprechen, for solo cello, was grimly dramatic… its source a Bach chorale, amplified into double-stop impasto, boiled away to a wisp of harmonics, finally coming into hard-won light.” – THE BOSTON GLOBE, Review of Versprechen as performed by Rafael Popper-Keizer (Dinosaur Annex), October 24, 2014 (Matthew Guerieri)
"My favourite piece [on the disc] is Kati Agócs's Versprechen (Promise), which reimagines a Bach chorale using the sort of variations on note sequences favoured by Serialist composers. This is beautifully varied, highly textured writing that Regehr executes with elegant ease, as he does every other one of the very difficult pieces on this album." - MUSICAL TORONTO, Review of Versprechen as recorded on ‘Full Spectrum’, CD by cellist Vernon Regehr, Daily Album Review, 24 November 2012