Dans les deux volets enchaînés de la partition, la soliste témoigne d’une telle maturité, d’une musicalité d’une telle profondeur et, bien entendu, d’une telle sûreté technique que l’académisme qui entache parfois certaines exécutions de ce concerto disparaît totalement de son approche chaleureuse et baignée de lumière. Il faut redire ici l’extrême qualité de son jeu : justesse sans faille, équilibre des registres, finesse des phrasés, perfection absolue des délicats passages en harmoniques… Virtuose accomplie, Alexandra Soumm ne fonde pourtant pas l’essentiel de son interprétation sur la seule perfection de sa technique. Ce qui entraîne par-dessus tout l’adhésion de l’auditeur, c’est la sensibilité de la musicienne. Serge Chauzy, Classic Toulouse, 14 January 2013

Soumm, with her marvellous fiddle, launched into Grieg’s Second Violin Sonata in G major with fire and passion: she got up a good head of steam at the start and pretty much maintained it.  She lovingly caressed the soft and lyrical elements of the second movement, but the ravishing power-play soon returned.  The last movement was delightful, with some skittishness and humour along the way before the big finish.

In Prokofiev’s Five Melodies op.35a, Soumm produced delicate lyrical shaping, controlled and expressive.  The great Romantic swagger familiar from the Grieg was back in spades for Strauss’s E flat major Sonata, tempered with a broad and subtle range of mood and colour.  The slow movement had tenderness and poetry, with fine playing too from her sensitive partner Adam Laloum, before the fireworks of the last movement, with Soumm technically dazzling, and smiling with the fun of it all.

Tim Homfray, The Strad, January 2013

Soumm and Adam Laloum chose an attractive programme, which opened with the bright tones of Grieg’s G major Sonata, a youthful work, written when the composer was 24, it brims with energy and melodic ideas.  Soumm’s bold tone ensured these were fully projected. There are a number of quirks to Grieg’s writing, such as the sombre, minor-key introduction, given with bowed head by Laloum, but Soumm exploded into life once it had finished.  This was a performance of high spirits, though the songful second movement was mindful of a darker melancholy, before a bright and positive Allegro, its ‘animato’ wholesomely observed.

Soumm’s tone, sparkling and sweet-natured in the Grieg, was at times too full-bodied for the intricacies of Prokofiev’s Five Melodies.  Originally written in 1920 for the soprano Nina Kochitz, these pieces transcribe effortlessly for violin as arranged by the composer five years later.  When the instrument is muted the spidery figuration of the first piece in particular gives an eerie effect. Soumm was alive to this particular sound, while elsewhere the duo successfully brought out the sudden moments of intense reflection that Prokofiev writes alongside more broadly lyrical statements.  The charm of the fourth piece was wary of these contrasts, and despite a few passages of over-projection this was a poised and closely observed account.

Richard Strauss’s Violin Sonata proved the ideal piece for these two musicians, full of youthful exuberance and passion.  The piano has a crucial part to play here, with quasi-orchestral scoring that needs to be played without dominating the violin.  Laloum got this balance absolutely right, fully in control of even the most difficult incidences of virtuosity in the finale, while it was he that successfully held back in the second movement ‘Improvisation’, giving some much needed respite from the fireworks elsewhere.  Both players clearly enjoyed this piece, smiling a lot as they performed, and both relished its blend of virtuosity and unadulterated romance, while making room for some pleasing references to the soon-to-be-published Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, which scurried about in the finale, the music surging forward irrepressibly.

Ben Hogwood, www.classicalsource.com, 16 October 2012

"...this was one of the finest performances of the work I have ever heard.  It positively sizzled but not at the expense of the lovely Mendelssohnian lyricisms.  A former child prodigy, Alexandra is now a mature 23 year old who delivers playing of astonishing power from a slight frame in a way that seems to defy nature.  The three component parts of orchestra, conductor and soloist were interpretively at one, negotiating their way through roller coaster tempi with perfect ensemble.  A wonderful moment was Mendelssohn’s cadenza towards the end of the first movement delivered quite stunningly by the soloist.  Here it was possible to savour the otherwise problematic acoustic of the cathedral setting.  The repeated, astronomically high notes wafted to the vaulted roof and lingered with ethereal resonance around the sacred space, lending authority to the clichéd adjective 'heavenly'."
John Leeman, Seen & Heard International, 9 May 2012

"Alexandra Soumm, a BBC Radio 3 New Generation artist, was the very poised soloist, her tone bright but articulating the phrasing with sensitivity and charm." The Guardian, 6 December 2011

THE STRAD RECOMMENDS: “Youth and vitality pour forth from these delicious recordings of the Grieg sonatas by Moscow-born violinist Alexandra Soumm and French pianist David Kadouch, both in their mid-twenties.  Never a note or a gesture is misplaced, Soumm bringing a featherlight touch to Grieg’s songful phrases, and Kadouch echoing her finesse with his transparent and eminently sensitive pianism.”

The Strad, December 2010