Browse: Presto Recordings of the Year, Chopin (composer)

The solemn Arpeggione is prefigured here by Isserlis’s arrangement of Chopin’s achingly beautiful ‘Nie ma czego trzeba’. Again in this Sonata, the duo offer graceful transparency, lithe refinement... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2018, 5 out of 5 stars More…

They are all works requiring formidable technical ability, and pianist Alexander Melnikov brings clarity of touch and virtuoso flair to them all, transferring as if effortlessly from instrument... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2018, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Nothing in the entire literature of Etudes surpasses Chopin’s Op. 25, and the best interpreters not only clear all the technical hurdles but project the 12 pieces as a progressive sequence. Rana’s... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2021, 4 out of 5 stars More…

A charm of lullabies, or an excess? If anyone could convince you that mostly slow and soft can work as an album sequence, it would be sonic magician Bertrand Chamayou...Within the narrow compass... — BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2020, 4 out of 5 stars More…

True, she sails perilously close to over-sentimentalising the opening Romanza...but Fliter plays with grace and heartfelt sincerity - abetted by some lovely duetting with the SCO's bassoonist... — Gramophone Magazine, March 2014 More…

he plays [the Mozart] with restraint, albeit micromanaging the music so that no phrase sounds the same twice...[in the Chopin] Sokolov ranges from introspective musing to his native Russian virtuosity. — Financial Times, 31st January 2015, 3 out of 5 stars More…

…his playing is unfailingly cultivated and his sound beautifully focused and poised.[Concerto in E minor]…Cho commands the work, and he leads the dance in the finale — BBC Music Magazine, May 2017, 4 out of 5 stars More…

If the programme sounds familiar, the reality is anything but. The first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 2 No. 3 emerges spacious and unhurried…The Op. 119 Bagatelles are an even greater revelation,... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2020, 5 out of 5 stars More…

The sequence works well as a recital-like experience, and also as a vehicle for Hough’s comprehensive mastery of his art...The idiom of his own ‘Vida breve’ Sonata, with its cogent sweep and... — BBC Music Magazine, March 2021, 5 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 4 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

In this work, Trifonov staves off potential sentimentality and produces – as usual – an exquisite tone…Some listeners will undoubtedly miss the epic nature of the original orchestration, but... — BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2017, 4 out of 5 stars More…