Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, S124

“I enjoyed his playing very much, for he has what is today the rare virtue of being able to play slowly. Though he often tosses off quick passages at conventional speeds (and he has plenty of technique), he always plays slow movements and slow sections of movements considerably slower than almost every other pianist listed above. And yet he is neither sentimental nor dull ; his playing, on the contrary, is movingly contemplative and poetic.” Gramophone Magazine, July 1957 (on the Grieg Piano Concerto)

“This music is wonderfully inventive, and Farrell brings out all the poetry and melancholy and humourin a performance that could hardly be bettered.” Gramophone Magazine, April 1959 (on Grieg’s Ballade)

“With this scintillating and eagerly awaiting recording, 19-year-old Lise de la Salle makes her concerto debut on disc. …performances are of the highest quality.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2008

“Everything about De la Salle's playing is astonishingly mature; technical challenges are met and never highlighted and she is always intent on seeking out the poetry beneath the teeming surfaces. This is distinguished piano playing.” The Guardian

“Liszt Piano Concerto No 1, S124 Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 1, Op 10 Shostakovich Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings, Op 35 Lise de la Salle pf Gábor Boldoczki tpt Gulbenkian Foundation Orchestra, Lisbon / Lawrence Foster Naïve V5053 (60' · DDD) F66” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The 21-year old Andsnes stripped these concertos of superfluous glitter. But although these performances exude poetic freshness they are at times too reserved. His later Grieg with Jansons is preferable. The Lyric Pieces are characterful.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2007 ****

“…the most impressive performance here is of the bizarre and remarkable Totentanz… Whether the work's extremes of lyrical solo reflection and collective eruptiveness can ever really be conjured into hanging together is a good question. For all that, Cohen does encompass those extremes impressively. Throughout, his Brazilian conductor-and-orchestra compatriots accompany him with colour and flair.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2008 ****

“…for unapologetic bravura combined with intimate poetry, a complete empathy with Liszt's intentions and full-blooded recorded sound, Cohen and his cohorts are hard to beat.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2007

“These performances, in DG's beautifully refurbished sound, remain as fanciful and coruscating as the day they were made. Argerich's fluency and re-creative spark dazzle and dumbfound to a unique degree but, given her reputation for fireeating virtuosity, it's perhaps necessary to say that both performances quiver with rare sensitivity as well as drama. Time and again she gives a telling and haunting poetic counterpoint to her, arguably, more familiar way of trailing clouds of virtuoso glory. Abbado partners his mercurial soloist as to the manner born, finding (in the Chopin in particular) a burgeoning sense of wonder where others sound dry and foursquare.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This is playing in the grand manner. From the start of First Concerto you're aware of a consciously leonine approach. Zimerman even deliberately takes risks in a few technically perilous places where some of his colleagues, at least in the studio, play safe; and indeed his octaves in the opening cadenza are an example.
The result sounds spontaneous and, yes, even brave. Ozawa and the orchestra are behind the soloist in all this. Not only do lyrical sections sing with subtlety, the big passages also are shapely. There's plenty of drive in this Concerto.
In the Second Concerto Zimerman adopts a different approach; he evidently considers it a more poetic piece and the playing style, strong though it is, is to match. Finely though he handles the gentler music, there are odd sniffs and hums in the molto espressivo passage following the D flat major cello solo, and also in the last of the work's quiet sections. In the gorgeously grisly Totentanz, both the music and the playing should make your hair stand on end. The sound has a depth that suits the music and the piano is especially impressive.
Zimerman's freshness (he reminds us that this is a young man's music), and the coupling, makes this disc a most desirable one.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Indeed, I have only praise. Each of the four works here is well characterized, and the typically Lisztian varying tempos are spot on, unrushed but never deliberate and always leading naturally from one to the next. Climactic passages are powerful, but the sound remains pleasant and avoids the crudity that can emerge from these scores in less sensitive hands” Gramophone Magazine