SACDs - Scriabin

“Obviously a must for clarinettists; but other performers, and listeners too, will enjoy this demonstration of what can be achieved with impeccable technique, a fertile imagination and a light touch.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2010 *****

“This disc not only presents the brilliant Swedish clarinettist Martin Fröst in a dazzling range of encore pieces but, with the help of his own explanatory notes, also provides a charming potted autobiography...altogether a wonderful showcase for a superb artist.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2010

“This is music that demands pianism of superlative quality, and here Yevgeny Sudbin miraculously combines the volcanic intensity of Vladimir Horowitz with the cat-and-mouse tonal reflexes of Mikhail Pletnev.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 *****

“Writing in prose as delirious as his playing, Yevgeny Sudbin speaks in his accompanying nine-page essay of the incomprehension that greeted Scriabin's half-crazed genius in both Russia and the West. This is entirely apt and no pianist of any generation has surely captured Scriabin's volatility so vividly as Sudbin.
In his choice of sonatas (ranging through Scriabin's early, middle and late periods), his mix of drama and introspection are positively alchemic and entirely his own. It is as if the music's very nerve ends are exposed to view and rarely has a pianist been prepared to take such risks on record. He takes virtuosity to the very edge at the end of the Fifth Sonata and his daredevil aplomb is at its height in the Ninth, suitably named Black Mass Sonata.
How he varies the colour, light and shade in the early D sharp minor Etude so that its familiar heroic octaves sound newly minted and never merely frenetic! His selection of Mazurkas is given with a breathtaking subtlety, making you long to hear him in Chopin, while his response to Scriabin's command in the Fifth Sonata, presto tumultuoso esaltato, is like the vortex of a whirlwind. All these performances are flecked with personal touches and brilliances above and beyond even Scriabin's wildest demands.
Finally, BIS captures Sudbin's astonishing range of colours and sonorities, ranging from the utmost delicacy to an enraged uproar, in crystalline demonstration sound. This, put suitably euphorically, is a disc in a million.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…no pianist of any generation has, in my experience, captured Scriabin's volatility so vividly as Sudbin. All these performances are flecked with personal touches and brilliances above and beyond even Scriabin's wildest demands. Finally, BIS captures Sudbin's astonishing range of colours and sonorities, ranging from the utmost delicacy to an enraged uproar, in crystalline demonstration sound. This, put suitably euphorically, is a disc in a million.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2007