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Nikolai Medtner
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 33
"With this recording Naxos completes its Medtner concerto cycle with Scherbakov. To have such romantic richness-once the province of specialists-offered on a bargain label is cause for celebration in itself; to have it performed and recorded with such tireless commitment is a double blessing. Scherbakov, praised by Richter and recently hailed as a 'modern Rachmaninov', is now more attuned to Medtner's widely flunctuating idion, complementing his unquestioned virtuosity with inwardness and conviction. Sample the passage beginning at 6'30" in the Third Concerto's finale and you will hear the sort of eloquence that warms the hearts of all true Russians. Elsewhere he and his partners are entirely sympathetic to freely associating ideas that sprout wings of the spirit and evolve into endlessly changing hues and patterns contained within a disciplined if idiosyncratic sense of form." Bryce Morrison, Gramophone
"This disc is successful in all counts... Scherbakov, praised by Richter and recently hailed as a "modern Rachmaninov", is attuned to Medtner's widely fluctuating idiom, complementing his unquestioned virtuosity with inwardness and conviction." Gramophone
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