Rachmaninov: Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 36

“This is very exciting playing in two very taxing works...Lugansky produces plenty of fire and brimstone, but also creates a tender and refined sound...Even at its most aggressive, his playing has a clarity and an utterly convincing sense of where every passage fits into the grand design. A really impressive disc.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2013 *****

“If, like me, you feel that Rachmaninov's First Sonata doesn't quite stack up, Nikolai Lugansky's account may just cause you to have second thoughts...Lugansky's superb perofrmance is endorsed by the rich, full tone of the piano...Rachmaninov-playing of a very high order.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2012

“with playing of this authority and conviction, it comes very highly recommended” International Record Review, December 2012

“As always with his Rachmaninov, Lugansky's playing balances grand gestures with an immaculate sense of detail. It's a combination that works particularly well with the overt drama of the First Sonata, where his subtle rhythmic and emotional inflections add immensely to the gathering tension. His performance of the Second is altogether more restrained: the limpidity of the slow movement is exquisite in the extreme.” The Guardian, 11th October 2012 ****

“In this beautifully recorded release [Howard] negotiates a persuasive course through the turbulent changs of mood in the first movement [of the First]” BBC Music Magazine, September 2011 ****

“[Howard plays] with terrific panache in Rachmaninov's bold, texturally intricate writing, allied to a sensitive awareness of the rich, varied palette of keyboard colour. He also conveys the music's virile energy, which carries the ear convincingly through those passages that the composer felt could be dispensed with...A performance that is in complete control of the pianistc demands and of the architectural span.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2011

“a hotline to Rachmaninov's dark poetry. The Variations and Moments Musicaux are vividly characterised, the Sonata majestic.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2012 ****

“At least two outstanding recordings of Rachmaninov's Second Piano Sonata have come my way in recent years (from Yevgeny Sudbin on BIS, and Simon Trpceski on EMI)… Yet Denis Matsuev's performance… is a formidable achievement, demonstrating breathtaking control of the complex polyphonic writing, while negotiating the ebb and flow of the musical argument with great purpose and direction.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2008 *****

“Denis Matsuev is a virtuoso in the grandest of grand Russian traditions who returns us to the great days of Emil Gilels. He possesses the sort of technique which begins where others end, and here in Rachmaninov his playing is truly 'stewed in Russian juices'.
His recital, entitled 'Unknown Rachmaninov', is in fact a mix of the familiar and newly discovered.
And while the piano version of the D minor orchestral Suite is hardly characteristic, let alone vintage Rachmaninov, it is played up to the hilt by Matsuev. The D minor Fugue is a more convincing discovery with its prophecy of the E minor Moment musicaux demanding and receiving a red-hot virtuosity. Again, Matsuev may have you longing for the fuller 1913 version of the Second Sonata but his playing blazes with such towering strength and conviction that he leaves you with virtually no grounds for complaint.
His pace in the 'Red Riding Hood' A minor Etude-tableau is hair-raising and the earlier Etude in the same key is given with a scale and romantic turbulence that declare the pianist's nationality in every bar. The G minor Prelude can scarcely have been played more stunningly in its entire history. This excellently recorded disc presents the most trenchant and commanding Rachmaninov recital in years.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Ever since his triumph in the 1998 Tchaikovsky Competition, Denis Matsuev's name has inspired awe and amazement in musical circles. Here is a virtuosos in the grandest of grand Russian traditions who returns us to the great days of Emil Gilels… this excellently recorded disc presents the most trenchant and commanding Rachmaninov recital I have heard in years.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2008

“From beginning to end, we are in the presence here of a major, world-class artist – a fearless technician with an all-encompassing command of his instrument; a musical dramatist of exceptional acumen and sophistication; a poet who moves seamlessly between unbridled rhetoric and extreme intimacy; a stylist who catches the particular spirit of everything he plays.” Piano Magazine

“In the case of the very expansive Chopin Variations… Sudbin makes a persuasive case for this unjustly neglected work, demonstrating not only breathtaking technical control throughout, but also a capacity to extract the most wide-ranging character and textural variety from the music he plays here. Similar qualities abound in a tremendously riveting account of the revised version of the Second Sonata... an extraordinary disc by anyone's standard.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2005 *****

“After the richly deserved acclaim that greeted his debut disc of Scarlatti, Yevgeny Sudbin moves onto home ground. And here, surely, is a young virtuoso in the widest, most encompassing sense.
Sudbin makes an unforgettable case for the Chopin Variations, a florid and uneven work, though at its finest (in, say, Variation 21) as memorable as anything in Rachmaninov. Omitting the quickly aborted fugue of Variation 12 and choosing the quiet rather than rumbustious coda, he is breathtakingly fleet in Variations 7-8 and goes through Variations 9-10 with all guns firing. Hear him in the whirling measures of Variation 20 (complete with sky-rocketing ossia) in page after page of dark, lyrical introspection and you will be hard pressed to recall a more talented or deeply engaged young artist.
The Second Sonata, played here in Sudbin's own Horowitz-based conflation, is equally inspired, going out in a spine-tingling final blaze of glory. In the two song transcriptions he sounds warmly committed to their floral enchantment.
Again, whether in love's joys or sorrows, Sudbin evinces a deft and super-sensitive virtuosity; and even though competition in both the Variations and the Sonata is intense he creates an entirely individual aura. His own personal and informative notes provide a crowning touch to this well recorded, deeply heartfelt recital.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

"Sheer talent does not come more transparently and, to top it all, harmonia mundi's sound is of demonstration refinement and quality." (The Gramophone)