Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23

“Anyone who heard Stephen Hough's barnstorming performances of all the Tchaikovsky piano concertos at last year's Proms will want to own these CDs...Captured live, they recreate all the raw excitement of those memorable evenings at the Albert Hall.” The Observer, 21st March 2010

“His ability to strip off the layers of varnish from a work so that it recaptures much of its startling freshness is remarkable, and his combination of bravura swagger and the most fastidious care with line and texture is utterly convincing.” The Guardian, 25th March 2010 *****

“With Hough at the keys, the First Concerto becomes no warhorse taken for a dutiful trot but a freshly imagined masterpiece bouncing with surprises and invention...But it’s the set’s lesser pieces that offer the most revelations.” The Times, 26th March 2010

“The old warhorse comes up as fresh as paint. Even with 130 alternatives on the market, this is an exceptional reading with brisk tempi and subtle nuances...giving special pleasure...This is a great recording - no doubt about that - and one which, if there is any justice, will garner any number of awards.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2010

“Hough typically refuses to treat it as an overworked warhorse: here it is injected with exhilaration, the bravura tempered with limpid lyricism.” The Telegraph, 7th April 2010 ****

“Both soloist and conductor seem committed to emphasising the architectural integrity of Tchaikovsky's musical thinking...Yet by keeping things moving and delivering performances that project an exceptionally high level of adrenaline, Hough brings a much greater degree of coherence” BBC Music Magazine, May 2010 *****

“Sparks fly thanks to his outstanding conductor, who clearly empathises with Hough’s refusal to lay on the romantic rubato with a trowel....He makes the strongest possible case for the restoration of the neglected and often reviled G major concerto” Sunday Times, 25th April 2010 *****

“…Cliburn gives the performances of his life. No wonder the audience erupts after the first movement of the Tchaikovsky. The allegro vivace assai section of the slow movement is taken at a daring pace, while the final pages are as thrilling as any on disc. ...then Rach Three... the first-movement cadenza... will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck; the finale's peroration will sweep you away.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2009

“Here, published for the first time, are the performances that sealed the Texan's first prize in the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, earning him a ticker-tape welcome back home and the Soviet bureaucrats red faces.
The strings are acidic, the solo cello sounds like an alto sax, the piano is frequently clunky- toned, the Moscow coughers are out in force and Cliburn has his fair share of fluffs and fudges – but none of this matters. There is a palpable sense of occasion, one in which all concerned sense they are witnessing history in the making as Cliburn gives the performances of his life. No wonder the audience erupts after the first movement of the Tchaikovsky. The allegro vivace assai section of the slow movement is taken at a daring pace, while the final pages are as thrilling as any on disc.
The second item on the programme was the Rondo by Kabalevsky, a pièce imposé written especially for the occasion. On this disc, Testament places it as the final work after the Rachmaninov.
It's hardly a masterpiece but Cliburn dignifies it by treating it like one. And then Rach Three. Despite the sonic imperfections and some scarily uncoordinated moments, this one punches a hardly less emotional impact than Cliburn's astounding RCA recording. The firstmovement cadenza (Cliburn plays the bigger of the two) will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck; the finale's peroration will sweep you away. Whatever that magical, indefinable gift is, Cliburn had it in 1958, his annus mirabilis.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Yevgeny Sudbin's performance here fairly explodes with imagination, feeling and desire. Here, one feels, is a pianist hungry to test himself intellectually and emotionally as well as technically” Gramophone Magazine

“His stunning virtuosity and the sensitive interaction with the conductor and orchestra really does the talking.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008

“To describe 26-year-old Yevgeny Sudbin as music's brightest young star pianist is in a sense to do him a disservice. For he is above all an artist, and here in his eagerly awaited concerto debut on disc he gives us a Tchaikovsky First of spine-tingling brilliance, poetry and vivacity. This is never the Tchaikovsky you have always known, but an arrestingly novel rethink with the concentration on mercurial changes of mood and direction.
Here, amazingly, is one of the most familiar of all concertos rekindled in all its first glory, brimming over with zest and shorn of all the clichés that have adhered to it over the years.
In the first movement Sudbin's octaves ring out like a giant carillon, while the Andantino's central prestissimo becomes in such extraordinary hands a true firefly scherzo. Not even Cherkassky at his finest possesed a more elfin sense of difference or caprice. And to think that all this and more is accomplished without the lift, or hindrance, of a major competition success.
Medtner's massive First Concerto, too, could hardly be played with a more burning clarity and commitment. Medtner's music remains formidably inaccessible, despite displaying the outward trappings of Romantic rhetoric yet Sudbin clearly believes in every note and his playing evinces, as on live occasions, a rare sense of affection. Such poetry is confirmed in his encore, his own transcription of Medtner's song Liebliches Kind! It only remains to add that BIS's balance and sound are of demonstration quality and that the São Paulo SO under John Neschling sound as if influenced by neighbouring Rio's carnival spirit, so infectiously do they respond to their radiant soloist.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

"Here is a pianist who, unlike most young competition winners, is already a world-class artist." Gramophone

“He performs with all his customary virtuoso assurance…” BBC Music Magazine, July 2006 ****