Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45

“Who would have guessed, when Naxos entered the CD market with buckets of budget-priced recordings by no-name instrumentalists and provincial Eastern-European orchestras, that 20 years later they would be offering the likes of this disc, featuring two of Britain's most distinguished and widely recorded pianists in the major two-piano works of Rachmaninov? The result is an hour and a quarter of first-rate music-making, and probably the finest single-disc version of the suites that I have heard.” Fanfare

“A welcome return to the catalogue for this classic recording…Kondrashin’s dashing reading revealed (The Bells) as a quintessentially Russian choral masterpiece – mercurial, exciting, sombrely moving.The orchestral playing is vivid, and the soloists…convey the imagery of the verses with real immediacy; Above all the chorus sings with magnificent fervour. The Symphonic Dances again are absolutely bursting with energy…” Michael Scott Rohan, BBC Music Magazine

“That voice, with its plangent, velvety, unmistakably Russian timbre, its impeccable breathing technique allowing him to sculpt impossibly long phrases, its high notes that go on forever, is deliciously present from the start.” (The Guardian on a London recital in 2004)