Rachmaninov: Étude-Tableau, Op. 39 No. 9 in D major

“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

“No matter how jaw-dropping her miraculously clean-fingered negotiation of such as Liszt's Mephisto Waltz, it's what happens between the notes, the way she grippingly characterises everything she plays, that constantly arrests the listener's attention. not since George Cziffra's hey-day have such white-hot, volcanic eruptions of pianistic derring-do been captured on disc. ...Montero also magics her phrasing poetically, as witness Chopin's heavenly D flat Nocturne. But what sets the seal on this remarkable release is the bonus disc of Montero's self-penned improvisations, whose jazz-styled inflections will have all die-hard romantics misting over on contact. Her spine-tingling rethink of Rachmaninov's Vocalise is worth the price of the disc alone.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2005