It’s fascinating to chart the evolution of Feinberg’s musical identity…Needless to say, the formidable technical demands of Feinberg’s piano writing hold no terrors for Marc-André Hamelin who delivers absolutely riveting and immaculately-voiced performances of each work, supported by superbly clear but warmly recorded sound. This release deserves the widest dissemination.

No one else can soar through the most note-heavy passages with such apparent ease; no one else can give such transparency to the densest textures; no one else since Glenn Gould has been able to give such individuality of rhythm and phrasing to each line within the most intricate polyphonic web (and even Gould didn’t match Hamelin’s control of simultaneous timbres). Good sound, good notes. Highest priority.

The more notes per second – and Feinberg is up there with the notiest of them – the more the Canadian virtuoso is in his element...Hamelin does far more than tame these pianistic leviathans. He gives them momentum, character and individuality.

It is difficult to imagine any living pianist other than Hamelin who could confront this music – music that is stranger than strange – with such compelling mastery, eloquence and lucidity … truly phenomenal playing.

Hamelin powerfully resolves all the technical complications and dramatic conflicts embedded in these intense works.