Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3, Symphony No. 5 - DENIS MATSUEV / MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA / VALERY GERGIEV (Hybrid SACD)
The Third Piano Concerto certainly packs a mighty punch through Denis Matsuev's brilliantly athletic playing...--BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Prokofiev: Symphonies Nos 4, 6 & 7; Piano Concertos Nos 4 & 5 - VALERY GERGIEV, ALEXEI VOLODIN, SERGEI BABAYAN, MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA (2 HYBRID SACDS)
The band's distinctive timbre creates an aura of authenticity. So too does Alexei Volodin's sensitive account of the Fourth Piano Concerto - GRAMOPHONE
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No 1; Shchedrin: Piano Concerto No 2; Stravinsky: Capriccio - DENIS MATSUEV / MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA / VALERY GERGIEV (HYBRID SACD)
If your ears can adjust, there's a supremely commanding Rachmaninov No 1 to be savoured here…Matsuev and Gergiev accept with the relish all the invitations to garish humour in Stravinsky's Capriccio…if you like your Russian concerto-playing declamatory and armour-plated, it could be just the treat you've been looking for. --GRAMOPHONE
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2; Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 - DENIS MATSUEV, VALERY GERGIEV, MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA
The Rachmaninov offers one of the finest performances of the first movement available: remarkable detail, superbly sculpted, technically magisterial. [Prokofiev] There is a reason we don’t hear this concerto much: its technical difficulty is summarised in the huge cadenza, brilliantly dispatched. The piece needs a superpianist; this powerful but lyrical performance dwarfs that of the Rachmaninov. Five-star Prokofiev. --INTERNATIONAL PIANO
Shostakovich: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 - DENIS MATSUEV / VALERY GERGIEV / MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA (HYBRID SACD)
These new accounts of the two Shostakovich Concertos must be among the best currently available. He is brilliant and mercurial in the fast movements of both works, creatively negotiating tempo and style and bringing a sense of elan to the Second's outer movements...This unfamiliar coupling offers added value for any collector of Russian music. --BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Tchaikovsky: Concertos Pour Piano N 1 & 2 - DENIS MATSUEV / MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA / VALERY GERGIEV (Hybrid SACD)
I doubt if you will ever hear [the B flat minor Concerto] more viscerally thrilling and sumptuously engineered than here. Listening to Matsuev and Gergiev is the aural equivalent of watching Federer and Nadal...If this isn't the greatest performance on disc, it is certainly now my personal benchmark...Matsuev and Gergiev give a similarly blistering account of the G major Concerto. --GRAMOPHONE
