Chopin & Rachmaninov

 "Hélène Grimaud is a formidably talented artist with strong, sometimes willful interpretive ideas . . . Grimaud's interpretation, then, is unusually personal, not just in its details but even in its vision of the work as a whole, and it's very powerful -- like the Chopin quite high-strung and very dramatic. Certainly she pegs the climaxes in the outer movements and offers a central lento whose rhapsodic freedom of phrasing never compromises the music's basic songfulness. She captures the finale's mercurial, emotional ambivalence about as well as anyone ever has . . . I can only applaud Grimaud's thoughtfulness, risk-taking, and obvious command of both the keyboard and the musical text." --ClassicsToday.com, March 2005

 "Yet the connections between the two sonatas are obvious. apart from sharing a common central tonality, both inhabit similarly turbulent emotional worlds offering in the process considerable challenges for the interpreter especially in terms of maintaining structural coherence . . . Hélène Grimaud rises to these challenges admirably. Like Argerich, she is a charismatic performer, responding instinctively to the ebb and flow of Chopin's writing. In this respect, although everything seems perfectly controlled, there's also an almost spontaneous sense of forward momentum which one would normally experience in a live concert . . . the expansions seem entirely plausible, serving in fact to strengthen the logical flow of the music. The performance and recording, too, are highly persuasive . . ." --BBC Music Magazine, April 2005

"Over the years, former "Wunderkind" Hélène Grimaud has turned into one of our most accomplished pianists. She has also become one of our most challenging, and those seeking an introduction to her art at its most individual and provocative could hardly do better than this new recital. The back of the jewel box promises a program that "encapsulates the very soul of the Romantic piano" . . . it also promises "uncompromising emotion" . . . there's plenty of intimacy . . . no easy listening here -- but plenty of intellectual and spiritual rewards . . . you'll be treated to plenty of virtuoso thrill: the finale of the Rachmaninov . . . is crushing in its accumulated power." --Fanfare, September 2005