CD, Busoni (composer)

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…

Gerstein and Oramo are impressive in their focus throughout the work’s opening movement, and the whirl forwards towards its close has a tremendous power to it…As [the slow movement] progresses,... — Gramophone Magazine, March 2019 More…

if some of the works here make uncomfortable listening – despite Donohoe’s keyboard brilliance – that is because Busoni himself disdained aural comfort...But the Toccata BV 29, being a transcription... — BBC Music Magazine, October 2021, 5 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 4 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

the intensity doesn’t let up, but neither does the quality of the playing...Indebted to Bach and to Liszt, the Fantasia Contrappuntistica can be an impenetrable work. Levit’s approach is lucid... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2023, 4 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 5 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

The way Levit has formed this programme is extraordinarily effective. The Brahms reworking for left hand of Bach’s D minor violin Chaconne is a probing, introverted affair, and how effectively... — Gramophone Magazine, November 2018 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…

The final instalment in the Swedish label BIS’s Sibelius survey mops up the odds and ends. There’s an incredible range of material strewn across the four discs in this set. Much of it is superb,... — The Arts Desk, 11th February 2012 More…