there’s something inescapably Russian about the way he plays Rachmaninov; the free-flowing romanticism, the surging tempos, and the waves of colour that can be almost overwhelming in the First Sonata...with a sense of the essential Russian-ness of the music, the darkness and melancholy at the heart of so much of it, despite the glowing magnificence of the more extrovert pages.

Powerful and measured, Paterson-Olenich's playing allows every one of the composer's maelstrom of notes to tell, and the First Sonata's magnificent if sprawling edifice is lit by one revelation after another. …when you listen to the first movement development... and final pages given with such breadth and understanding you are hearing a pianist born for Rachmaninov. The Op 39 Etudes-tableaux, always among the composer's richest offerings, present the same moving force and involvement. ...throughout this entire programme you are made frighteningly aware of Rachmaninov's demons, of his confession that "sometimes I think someone will come down the chimney and murder me".