It's not just intelligent programme planning...that makes Piemontesi stand out; this is seriously classy pianism. Clarity of thought is complemented by clarity of touch, incisive intellect by a good dose of fantasy. The details are a joy...there's space to breathe and to dance...Spacious but clear recording quality enhances the lot.

The Handel is alluringly played, segueing neatly into the Brahms. Piemontesi gives this a thoughtful, meticulously observed reading but seems inhibited when it comes to exploiting the full resources of the piano...The intimacy and desolation of "Valle d'Obermann" are sensitively characterised but again Piemontesi seems afraid to let go

Handel’s B flat major Suite, HWV 34, is incisive and positive, while clarity is not compromised by the wide tonal palette he displays in Brahms’s Handel Variations, Op 24. Bach’s B flat major Partita is articulated elegantly. A fine account of Liszt’s transcription of Bach’s G minor Fantasy and Fugue does its massiveness and thrilling contrapuntal intricacies utter justice.

There's a real aristocratic sweep to this 27-year-old Swiss pianist's playing; the Handel suite from which Brahms extracted the theme of his Handel Variations is generously expressive...Piemontesi's unaffected Bach playing is recognisably all of a piece with his fundamentally unflamboyant approach to Liszt, which manages to present the rhetorical grandeur of Vallée d'Obermann truthfully, without exaggerating it in any way.

Piemontesi combines communicative panache with remarkable insight. He prefaces a virile, sensitive performance of Brahms’s Handel Variations with a stylistically discerning one of the Handel suite...[the Liszt pieces] provide further evidence of Piemontesi’s exceptional talent.