Bach: Partitas Nos. 1 & 3 · Sonata No.2

Ilya Gringolts goes his own way, turning in performances of swaggering individuality and abundant fantasy. ... each gesture appears as the product of deep reflection in an art that conceals art ... Gringolts comes out punching in the First Partita's Allemande, his jaunty swiftness producing an almost immediate knockout. His breathless Tempo di borea and jazzy ornamentation in its Double might establish him as a simple speed demon if it weren't for phrasing that reveals in cascades of notes profoundly moving and fascinatingly geometrical patterns. ... Obligatory for listeners, it imposes a corresponding obligation on him: He should finish the set while his muse still sings in his ear. --Fanfare, Record Review

Gringolts plays Bach without a safety net. One gets the impression that he is thinking through this music as though it were hot off the press, rather than an 'old master' lying buried under years of interpretative accretions . . . Gringolts's rhythmic, dynamic and phrasal plasticity is such that the opening 'Grave' of the A minor Sonata creates the impression of a brilliant improvisation, thereby allowing the music's greatness to unfold naturally from within rather than having it enforced from without . . . Most importantly, Gringolts never sounds anything less than intoxicated by the music's raw power. The recording is as unflinchingly direct and honest as the playing itself, and the booklet by Jeremy Nicholas contains a typically revealing interview with Gringolts about the music. --International Record Review

Here the accent is on assertiveness, agility, clean lines (largely vibrato-free, of course), informed scholarship and the freedom to extemporise . . . lively, impulsive Bach, occasionally aggressive, stylistically well targeted . . . and technically assured. --Gramophone