CLASSICAL SOURCE: March 2010, Wigmore Hall
"A fiery account of the Piano Sonata from Clare Hammond ended the first half, building on her performance of the same work at the Purcell Room in January during the Park Lane Group's week of new music and young performers. Once again she demonstrated a formidable technical command, as well as a strong affinity with the composer's quickly changing moods. A stern-faced first movement was darkly coloured, the mood lifting for a vivacious scherzo. Hammond performed the movements with as little break as possible, moving from the cold Passacaglia to the strident fugal subject of the finale with apparent ease. Her virtuosity was stunning at times, all the more so for being so dedicated to the composer's intentions."
THE GUARDIAN: January 2010, Purcell Room
"Still, there are occasions when artist and programme really gel. One was Clare Hammond's recital, which married Giles Swayne's 2008 Three Bagatelles for solo piano with two of Julian Anderson's Piano Etudes, and also featured a little-known study by Stephen Oliver. Hammond, who studies at the Guildhall, played from memory with crisp precision and unflashy intelligence. The second of the Swayne pieces requires the softest, most even touch for its delicately balanced tonality to stabilise, just as the brittle humour of the third could easily snap under less clever fingers. Similarly, Anderson's studies require minute command, not just over each note's attack, but also of each release. Most impressive, though, was her natural sense of pacing, allowing the hollowed-out climax of Pour les Arpèges Composées to gather like a wisp of smoke in sunlight before dissipating in a passing breeze."
THE TELEGRAPH: January 2010, Purcell Room
"The pianist Clare Hammond raised a cheer with her performance of Barber's Piano Sonata, and rightly so, as she projected its heroic rhetoric with amazing power and panache."
CLASSICAL SOURCE: January 2010, Purcell Room
"A high-octane account of Samuel Barber's Piano Sonata (1949) concluded the recital... with formidable articulation of the scherzo's heady passagework and a finale whose precipitous drive through to a hair-raising close fairly brought the house down."
CLASSICAL SOURCE: January 2010, with cellist Richard Birchall, Purcell Room
"Like the Leighton, Sally Beamish's Bridging the Day (1998, London premiere), for cello and piano, was a revelation. Six interlinking sections evoking the effects of natural light, the work has a strong visual flavour, rather like a set of wood engravings. It has a very British visionary quality, and Richard Birchall's and Clare Hammond's performance could not have been more in tune with it."
EVENING POST, Nottingham: November 2009
"Rhapsody in Blue was charged with restless energy, offset by moments of lyrical intensity. Piano soloist Clare Hammond's playing was exquisitely supple and full of expression."
EVENING POST, Nottingham: April 2008
"So strongly does Clare Hammond identify herself with her composers that the music seemed to come from within her, rather than from the piano. This performer unites unflawed elegance with the ability to gauge every work's emotional measure. She opened with a selection of Schubert Impromptus, miniatures full of charm, but not all sweetness and light. Writing a century later, Olivier Messiaen liberally supplied those qualities in La Colombe (The Dove). This was effectively contrasted with Nombre léger (Light Number) and a dramatically conceived Reflet dans le Vent (Reflection in the Wind). Alexander Scriabin's Fantasy Sonata in G sharp minor lifted the poetry of a Chopin into mystical realms - realms which were charted with energetic conviction. The second half of the recital showed imaginative powers of a similar order. After an alfresco Bartok suite, Brahms' Two Rhapsodies (Opus 79) returned us to the Romantic mainstream. Vallée d'Obermann, from the "Swiss" volume of Liszt's Years of Pilgrimage, yielded an epic climax. The pianist's encore underlined the sheer agility of her mind and fingers."
LOCAL SECRETS, Cambridge: Endellion Quartet, May 2006
"And then came Clare Hammond. Her performance of Mozart's E flat piano quartet K493 was exemplary. She was absolutely confident from the very first, decisive notes of the Allegro, which she projected boldly, sacrificing none of its youthful joyfulness. There was lovely shaping of phrases... in the slow movement, Miss Hammond's playing was expressive but always with a strong sense of direction. Here... there were some winning question and answer passages between soloist and strings and a genuine intensity developed towards the end of the movement which came all too soon. The concerto-like finale was pure delight. The pianist was in full command, her playing by turns lyrically elegant and masterfully assured. Clare Hammond has a bright future. My only regret was that we couldn't have Mozart's other piano quartet after the interval."
EVENING POST, Nottingham: July 2005
"Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody can suffer from over-exposure so there has to be something special about its performance to set the pulse racing. Luckily Clare Hammond had just the right combination of pianistic poetry and brilliance to make this a Rhapsody to remember. There was a jazzy, improvisatory feel about so much of it."
EVENING POST, Nottingham: March 2003
"Clare Hammond was the soloist in Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto. It received technical brilliance, emotional depth and physical strength in a performance that brought her a huge ovation."