Rachmaninov: Prelude Op. 3 No. 2 in C sharp minor

“revelatory: instead of the stern Beethovenian we are used to, the young pianist who emerges courtesy of piano-roll recordings from the 1920s is full of fire and flamboyance.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2013 *****

“Wonders galore in Rachmaninov's playing, beyond its obvious historical importance. Cast-iron technique, proper old-school sense of line and tone colour, and an incomparable rubato.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2013 *****

“No composer or pianist has ever sounded more indelibly Russian, and never more so than in his own music...What clear relish and delight in the playful rather than melancholic capers of the Polka, what vitality and aplomb in the festive E major Prelude...this, the thrid volume of Naxos's 'Great Pianists' Rachmaninov, gives us playing beyond price.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2013

“He's clearly a pianist of great technical ability; there's a wonderful clarity to even the most hectic passages here, and though his tone can harden at the big climaxes, as in the B flat major Prelude from Op 23, his playing never loses its poise. But it's all peculiarly uninvolving.” The Guardian, 3rd January 2013 ***

“Vincent’s debut really is encouraging. At age 21, he’s already thinking very independently about this music, and he’s not merely a rote technician, either. He has the potential to develop into somebody with a lot of interesting ideas about the music he plays, and the playing power to deliver them. I’m very glad to welcome an artist like this to the scene.” MusicWeb International, March 2013

“virtuosity is never allowed to trump expressiveness. His is a cool artistry, sensitive to uncovering the poetry and capable of presenting the over-familiar in a completely new light...Vincent's weighting and voicing of his chords is fastidiously refined, he brilliantly treats the fast pieces without a trace of hurry, and the lyrical pieces are rendered with lovely delicacy.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2013 *****

“Vincent has something interesting and personal to say about each of these little gems. His is more emotionally engaging than some other complete sets and, despite my reservations over 'It' (as Rachmaninov called his first-born), is well worth investigating.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2013

“This wide-ranging conspectus of Russian piano miniatures spans Ashkenazy's career from 1963 to 2004. Fine playing, occasionally short on charm.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2012 ****

“there's little doubt Zenph's enhanced sound quality makes one appreciate the warmth and clarity of Rachmaninov's playing with its lightness of touch, sparing use of the pedal and avoidance of indulgent mannerisms.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2010 ****

“It's unnervingly like raising Rachmaninov from the dead but it's undeniably fascinating to hear his own etudes and arrangements of works by Bach, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky in these 21st-century reincarnations.” The Observer, 6th December 2009

“…outstanding Rachmaninov playing of acute perception, discretion and poetic sensibility, limpid, powerful and luminous in equal measure.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2009 *****

“It's all too easy to coarsen Rachmaninov's melodic genius with an overtly applied emotionalism, its clearly drawn lines becoming smudged. But Osborne conveys both the monumentality of these pieces, even the most fleeting, and their very human qualities. ...while there's no empty barn-storming on display here, that's not to say the technical challenges are shirked or underplayed in any way. There are few pianists who offer such range and depth of palette: not even Ashkenazy's seminal reading.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2009

“His dazzling technique illuminates the virtuosic allegro and allegretto sections, and his playing has a Rachmaninovian pliancy and beautifully achieved rubato in lyrical passages. One of the piano discs of the year.” Sunday Times, 17th May 2009 ****

“Osborne's skill and imagination combine to bring fresh perspectives to the well-known pieces and an absorbing range of expressivity to those that remain underplayed…” The Telegraph, 4th May 2009 *****

“These are wonderfully natural performances: the best on disc since Vladimir Ashkenazy's set from the 1970s, with Osborne always alert to the variegated surfaces of the music, yet mindful of the deeper currents that run beneath. His sound is perfectly judged, never overbearing in even the heftiest passages, and translucent enough to allow the inner lines, which often in Rachmaninov have an expressive life all their own, to be heard. A lovely disc.” The Guardian, 1st May 2009 *****

“A quick dip into Rachmaninov’s scattered recordings from this repertoire finds the composer boxed in, not just by ancient recording technology but by his own circumspection. Osborne, by comparison, flies free without ever rampaging. Sorrow and sunlight, death and life: all Rachmaninov is here, in three dimensions, luscious colour and widescreen. A most exciting release.” The Times, 24th April 2009 ****

“This sensational pianist is usually associated with Messiaen or Tippett. Here, playing a Steinway, he brings his technical wizardry and, above all, his penetrating musical intelligence to these much-recorded works of Rachmaninov. There's no indulgence and no piano bashing. In his combination of modesty, inner fire and natural virtuosity he brings to mind that other Rachmaninov master, Ashkenazy.” The Observer, 19th April 2009

“Extremely impressive all round … Osborne lavishes a remarkable level of authority on every one of these masterworks, playing with a rare combination of technical ease, tonal lustre and idiomatic identification. He also has the undeniable advantage of a magnificent Steinway instrument with a rich, opulent sonority and great solidity in its bass register … In summary, Osborne goes from strength to strength as he moves through the cycle, wrapping up the final page of the concluding D flat prelude in a blaze of glory … For a truly spellbinding modern account, Osborne now holds the winning ticket” International Record Review

“It's all too easy to coarsen Rachmaninov's melodic genius with an overtly applied emotionalism, its clearly drawn lines becoming smudged.
But Osborne conveys both the monumentality of these pieces, even the most fleeting, and their very human qualities. It's rare to find the balance so acutely achieved. The composer himself, of course, knew how to achieve that equilibrium, but then he had a head start.
Yet this is only a starting-point – the detail is equally delectable: the way that Osborne shapes the tear-stained melody of Op 23 No 4, for instance, and picks out the line from the dark, bustling figuration of Op 23 No 7 or the lefthand countermelody of Op 23 No 8. Then, in the Op 32 set, there's the simplicity of the second, with its incessant tolling around the note C, through to the meditative quality of No 10, the line rising out of the depths as sonorously as Debussy's cathedral. Another fascination is the way Osborne's range of touch puts the Preludes into such a clear historical context.
Osborne throws down the gauntlet with a towering C sharp minor Prelude: it's arguably too slow but makes an apt curtain-raiser on a set that glories in the magnificence of this music. And while there's no empty barn-storming on display here, that's not to say the technical challenges are shirked or underplayed in any way.
There are few pianists who offer such range and depth of palette.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Ashkenazy's account of Rachmaninov's preludes has much competition these days, but it's still a rewarding performance. There's an exciting depth to Ashkenazy's tone, the layering of colours is beautifully managed and the atmosphere expertly combines poetry and logic.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2007 ****

“'Perhaps what strikes home most of all is the sheer aristocracy of his playing ... everything is beautifully moulded and proportioned, beautifully balanced and blended. The sonority he draws from the instrument is poetry itself, as for instance the liquid stream of Op.23 nos.8 & 9. His effortlessly strong, brilliant technique is of course an enormous asset in bolder challenges like Op.23 no.2 ... at all times his phrasing suggests acute susceptibility, yet sentiment never degenerates into sentimentality and nothing would have pleased Rachmanimnov more than that. The C sharp minor Prelude is so often murdered that it is a revelation to hear it done with such a fine blend of the imperious and the mysterious; it emerges here as a little masterpiece.” Gramophone Magazine