Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S178

“The best is Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances — a pungent coda” The Times, 20th November 2010 ***

“Mozart's A minor Sonata comes through the Grimaud experience much the best. Her booklet interview gives an intriguing view of the composer...and her way of bringing out the music's dramatic, pre-Beethoven manner convinces strongly...In Liszt's Sonata she deploys her technical command with total fearlessness” BBC Music Magazine, January 2011 ***

“This richly varied selection of works...opens with probably the most powerful of Mozart's two minor-key sonatas and Grimaud's interpretation is suitably involved and full-blooded...Her ardour and romanticism are entirely suited to the Berg and Liszt Sonatas: the technical challenges are effortlessly overcome and the tonal architecture is clearly paramount.” International Record Review, December 2010

“The Liszt Piano Sonata...is given a powerful and fluent reading that gets to the heart of the piece...skip the Mozart, sample the Berg and revel in the outstanding performance of the Liszt and the delightful Bartok.” Classic FM Magazine, February 2011 ***

“Cechová's interpretation comes over as rather lyrical and thoughtful, not seeking to overawe but to identify the emotional bedrock from which the massive superstructure arises... As far as wild bravura goes, she shows herself able to give her all with a barnstorming but rather choppy account of Mephisto Waltz No. 1” BBC Music Magazine, October 2010 ****

“A romantic virtuoso who is never dull, her playing is fiercely energised and enthusiastic.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2010

“Even in an impossibly competitive field Demidenko's Liszt Sonata stands out among the most imperious and articulate. His opening is precisely judged and once the Sonata is under its inflammatory way his virtuosity is of a kind to which few other pianists could pretend. The combination of punishing weight and a skittering, light-fingered agility makes for a compulsive vividness yet his economy in the first cantando espressivo, sung without a trace of luxuriance or indulgence, is no less typical. There are admittedly times when he holds affection at arm's length, but just as you're wondering why he commences the central Andante so loudly he at once withdraws into a wholly apposite remoteness or reticence. The final climax, too, is snapped off not only with a stunning sense of Lisztian drama but also with an even truer sense and understanding of Liszt's score and instructions.
Demidenko's couplings are no less autocratic, with a capacity to make seemingly arbitrary ideas sound unarguable. His Légendes are far from benign, yet his tautness and graphic sense of their poetic power carry their own authority. He's in his element in the Scherzo and March's diablerie, music which, coming after the two Légendes, affects one like an upside-down crucifix, or some dark necromancy. The recording is outstanding.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010