Vadim Repin

“Despite Vadim Repin's formidable reputation as a Brahms interpreter, his recording of the Violin Concerto will doubtless prove controversial in some quarters. The glamour and majesty of his playing leap out at you from every phrase; this is a performance on the grandest of scales, full of high drama and extravagant rhetorical gestures. Conducted by Riccardo Chailly, it's also notably slow. The dividends are enormous in the second half: the adagio has great nobility, while the finale is weighty and detailed as well as virtuosic. The first movement, however, has a ponderous quality that reinforces old-fashioned views of Brahms's music as being stately. Its companion piece is the Double Concerto, in which Repin and Chailly are joined by Norwegian cellist Truls Mork. This is a wonderful performance, and certainly the more consistent of the two. Chailly's conducting has cragginess as well as grandeur, while Repin and Mork are thrilling and tender. Recommended - though if you prefer the Violin Concerto done with more intimacy, you need to look elsewhere.” The Guardian, 13th February 2009

“…Chailly… conveys wonderfully well the epic quality of the huge opening tutti. Repin relishes the work's moments of delicacy as much as the declamatory ones. Nothing is ever effortful: even the tortuous double-stopping seems to leave him entirely unfazed.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2009

“Vadim Repin's performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto have met with much press acclaim, and one sees why. His dazzling technique aside, the firm, warm tone, magnificent control of phrasing and rhythmic incisiveness are all tailor-made for the piece. ...Riccardo Chailly's direction of the Gewandhausorchester is with him all the way. Repin is joined by Truls Mørk for an equally memorable account of the Double Concerto. ...the warmth and skill they bring the Andante, characterising their instruments as the two protagonists of an intimate dialogue, makes this the high-point of the disc.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2009 *****

“Repin's… view of the Concerto is dangerously relaxed. There's no doubting the beauty of his tone, especially in pianissimo… but there are moments when the music threatens to grind to a halt…” BBC Music Magazine, November 2007 ***

“Muti's conducting of the Concerto… always flexible and accommodating of his soloist, while the Vienna Philharmonic's playing is consistently warm in texture. The return to full tutti is carefully calculated, the beautifully played cadenza a little later on Kreisler's famous melding of themes, less fashionable nowadays than it once was, but wholly appropriate to Repin's reverential and warn-hearted interpretation. Repin's refined expressiveness and Argerich's powerhouse pianism happily relate, provided you can accept the "marriage of opposites" principle. Argerich is definitely the dominant partner.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2007

“It's the Myaskovsky that really makes this disc a 'must-have'. His Violin Concerto was premiered by David Oistrakh in Leningrad in 1939. As with Tchaikovsky's Concerto, the opening tutti plays for less than a minute and the slow movement is touchingly lyrical. The rather melancholy first movement is built on a grand scale and includes an expansive cadenza where Repin's mastery is virtually the equal of Oistrakh's. It's forceful music, epic in scale and earnestly argued, the sort of piece that Gergiev thrives on.
Listening to Repin's Tchaikovsky Concerto (his second recording of the work) confirms just how far he's journeyed in a few years.
Tone projection is stronger, attack more aggressive and his solo demeanour seems better focused than before, far more confident and spontaneous. Mixed in with these improvements are one or two affectations, but it's a cracking performance, one of the best from the younger generation. The recording sounds like a digital update of the sort of blowsy inyour- face sonics typical of the first stereo recordings of the late 1950s. Nevertheless, a fabulous disc.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Repin’s and Lugansky’s subtlety of expression is a major factor in making this so outstanding, so ravishing and so spine-tingling. Both musicians give of their utmost and, when the musicians in question are Repin and Lugansky, that makes for something exceptional.” The Telegraph, 15th October 2010 *****

“The obvious empathy that exists between these two artists...brings enormous dividends to this warmly recorded programme. It's so easy to become complacent in such a well-worn work as the Franck. But Repin and Lugansky overcome any hint of routine...Superb.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2010 *****

“The Franck is discursive and lingering, but Repin and Lugansky plot a lucid pathway through its labyrinth of interlocking, dovetailing themes...in the finale [of the Grieg] Repin's pinhead-subtle expressive slides between notes is delightful...Repin and Lugansky match ardent physicality with rare musical intelligence.” Classic FM Magazine, December 2010 *****

“As presented by Vadim Repin and Nikolai Lugansky, Janáček's Violin Sonata becomes unambiguously a late-romantic work, almost overfilled with emotion, and milked for every bit of its expressive...The playing and the sense of ensemble are both magnificent...[In the first movement of the Franck] their playing has much more refinement and a sense of light and shade” The Guardian, 2nd December 2010 ***

“This is one of the finest performances I have ever heard of the Janacek, played with breathtaking conviction and an utterly persuasive grasp of Janacek's idiom...Their new disc is worth getting for this performance of the Janacek alone, but the rest is every bit as impressive” International Record Review, December 2010

“it's impossible not to respond to this vital, wholehearted playing” Gramophone Magazine, March 2011

“The charismatic combination of Repin and Berezovsky could (almost) make you believe Strauss's Violin Sonata is a great work. The Stravinsky is stunning too - perhaps the best available.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2010 *****

“…Maisky…what impresses most of all about these performances is their single mindedness. Nowhere is there even a suggestion of conflicting temperaments with their own agenda. What shines through here is the give and take, the kinship, of outstanding chamber music playing. Repin is quoted as saying that Lang Lang's playing shines as though full of light - and that's the overriding spirit here, even in darkness.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2009

“...all three play with such confidence, verve and – wait for it – deference, that they bounce off and meld with each other perfectly in a performance that brings out all the tension, tenderness and exuberance of these two works...The concrete fact proved by this disc is that Lang Lang can not only do chamber music, but do it phenomenally well.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 22nd October 2009