★★★★★
Brahms' Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel has long been one of my favorite works by this composer and is, hands down, my favorite set of keyboard variations by anyone. What is more, I think it is one of the most pianistic works I know. There is an orchestration by Edmund Rubbra, which I have heard but have not been enraptured by - unlike the Schoenberg orchestration of Brahms Op...
- www.classical.net
2010-12-06
★★★★★
Lots of performers play Bach on the modern piano. No one does it better than Murray Perahia, whose command of sonorities, dynamics and phrasing makes you hear the piano as an ideal Baroque instrument. These perfectly judged accounts of three partitas are full of persuasive insights and beguiling subtleties. In Partita No. 2, Perahia gives the Courante a thrusting momentum in advance of a patient and spacious Sarabande; his Rondeaux flexes around smartly articulated seventh intervals...
- www.sfgate.com
2009-11-06
★★★★★
Among the many popular Columbia recordings reissued in the Masterworks Expanded Edition, Murray Perahia's exceptional performances of Mozart's piano concertos surely merit the renewed attention. Over the 1970s Perahia recorded the entire cycle of concertos, and these have been favored by many for almost three decades for their consistent clarity, sincere expression, and abundant excitement...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
Is this disc really necessary? With spectacular recordings of Chopin's etudes by Horowitz, Richter, Moravec, and Pollini readily available, is a new recording by Murray Perahia really necessary? Except for fans of the pianist, probably not: the poetic Perahia has nothing new to add to the already profoundly poetic performances of Moravec and Richter, and the virtuoso Perahia cannot compete with the astonishing virtuosity of Horowitz or Pollini...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
Listening to Murray Perahia's 2002 recordings of Schubert's last three piano sonatas, one is reminded all over again how great the works are, how dramatic and heroic the C minor is, how lyrical and passionate the A major is, and how morbid and sublime the B flat major is...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
Mainstays in Sony's catalog, Murray Perahia's delightful performances of Mozart's piano concertos certainly warrant inclusion in the Masterworks Expanded Edition, though the differences between this disc and its previous release are slight. The enhancements of Direct Stream Digital and SBM Direct give the original masters a fair boost, but this seems a minimal improvement over the good analog sound...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28