Scriabin: Piano Concerto in F sharp minor, Op. 20

‘It is something of an achievement when one manages to hear afresh such an over-familiar work’ (BBC Music Magazine)

“Demidenko offers a blazing yet superbly-controlled account of the Tchaikovsky No. 1. And this is the best available version of Sciabin's youthful, Chopinesque Concerto.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 *****

“The chief attraction here is the unusual coupling which pairs two sharply opposed examples of Russian Romanticism, and although the reasons for the neglect of Scriabin's Piano Concerto aren't hard to fathom (its lyrical and decorative flights are essentially inward-looking), its haunting, bittersweet beauty, particularly in the central Andante, is hard to resist. Demidenko's own comments, quoted in the accompanying booklet, are scarcely less intense and individual than his performance: 'in the ambience, phrasing and cadence of his music we meet with a world almost without skin, a world of nerve-ends where the slightest contact can bring pain.' His playing soars quickly to meet the music's early passion head on, and in the first più mosso scherzando he accelerates to produce a brilliant lightening of mood. His flashing fortes in the Andante's second variation are as volatile as his pianissimos are starry and refined in the finale's period reminiscence, and although he might seem more tight-lipped, less expansive than Ashkenazy on Decca, he's arguably more dramatic and characterful. Demidenko's Tchaikovsky, too, finds him ferreting out and sifting through every texture, forever aiming at optimum clarity. While this is hardly among the greatest Tchaikovsky Firsts on record, it's often gripping and mesmeric. The recorded balance isn't always ideal and the piano sound is sometimes uncomfortably taut.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Ilinskaya...chooses the last of three sets of transcriptions from the ballet, imbuing it with warmth and assurance...Her Medtner is admirably ordered and lucid” Gramophone Magazine, July 2010

“...the fleet, perky finale [of the E flat Concerto by Pabst] is full of rapid runs, arpeggios, trills and other mind-boggling effects that Marshev, well supported by the orchestra, invests with a sure sense that the whole exercise has been worthwhile...The aplomb and stylistic understanding of [the three] performances bring all three works to life.” The Telegraph, 2nd August 2008

“This is Oleg Marshev's finest disc since his stylish accounts of the two Shostakovich concertos. The sound is as crisp and clean as the performances.” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2008 *****

“Very good recorded sound and a real bargain at less than a fiver.” Classic FM Magazine