Reviews & Quotes "Mr. Boyle's writing is rich in color and undeniably appealing." "Benjamin Boyle was the pianist for his own Sonata-Fantasy with violinist Tim Fain, who earns special praise for committing the complex 18-minute work to memory. Boyle's lush, romantic style, redolent of Franck and Ravel was instantly enjoyable." "I was perhaps most surprised by Benjamin C.S. Boyle’s Sonata-Cantilena, a work composed just two years ago that sounds like it could be part of the standard repertoire for flutists for years to come. That it is unrepentantly tonal—its role models are Barber and Poulenc—is nothing to be apologetic for in the 21st century when all aesthetic positions are equally valid and when all continue to yield captivating music." "a beautiful commissioned work by a young, American composer.... a jeweler-worthy setting of the medieval carol "The Holly and the Ivy" by Philadelphia's Benjamin C.S. Boyle." "Benjamin C.S. Boyle's Sonata-Fantasy. Scored for violin and piano, this passionately romantic three-part work joins modern passions to 19th-century expression and piquant pinch of "Der Rosenkavalier" tossed in. It was enthusiastically executed by violinist Tim Fain with the composer at the piano." "A young American composer, Benjamin C.S. Boyle, created his Sonata for Cello and Piano especially for [Efe] Baltacigil. This proved a succinct, attractive work in three movements, conventional in utterance, deftly crafted for the two instruments and rather Shostakovichian in its harmonic language. … This is modest, likable music from a promising composer, and there's nothing wrong with that."
Even more hearings will be needed to appreciate the contrapuntal complexities of Cantata: To One in Paradise by Benjamin CS Boyle, who inventively mined the Edgar Allan Poe poem "Thou wast all to me, love" for a far-reaching, multi-movement piece. Though the music is as dense as Bach's cantatas, the solo vocal writing is expansive and lyrical - Crossing tenor Daniel O'Dea was wonderful - with subterranean agitation appropriate to Poe. “The sole contemporary work played by [Efe] Baltacigil and [Anna] Polonsky was a cello sonata by the youthful American composer Benjamin C.S. Boyle. This relatively new piece seems to be far more tonal, pleasant and accessible than a great deal of what has come out of academia during the past couple of decades but still seems the result of a rather rigorous musical mind. Based upon the musicians' performance of the work, this is music that deserves further hearing.” “[The composer is] not interested in spearheading the new avant-garde, but writes with great assurance, a fine sense of dramatic shape, and a good ear for melody. There were many passages where the composer was able to get new and memorable sounds out of an old medium... I shall certainly be listening to it again.” “Mr. Boyle seems somehow to have escaped academia's toxic postmodernist flotsam almost entirely, creating tuneful work with charm, power, and an occasional chilling frisson of the gothic.” "The contemporary Ballade (2004) by Benjamin C.S. Boyle fit nicely with the Debussy. [Chu-Fang] Huang's expressive style proved well suited to the music's dark rumination and burst of bravura." “[The composer is] one of the few truly great song writers of the current times.”
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