TRIFONOV / NEZET-SEGUIN / PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA - Rachmaninoff Variations - [CD]

One of today's most popular and most critically-acclaimed pianists, Daniil Trifonov records an album of Rachmaninov Variations. Album includes solo performances of Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Variations on a Theme of Chopin and Trifonov's own composition, Rachmaniana. Also included is the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for which Yannick Nezet-Seguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra join. Extensive US touring will take place throughout the 2015-16 season.

REVIEW

Virtuosity is one thing, youthful exuberance another. Many aspiring talents survive on just one of these qualities. A lucky few have both. No one combines them with musical maturity the way Daniil Trifonov does. The technical brilliance is always at the service of his powerful imagination. The exuberance is controlled by his natural musicianship. What makes him such a phenomenon is the ecstatic quality he brings to his performances an all-consuming intensity-of-belonging on the public platform that translates into something thrilling, absorbing, inspiring. --The Financial Times

What mattered, and made this such a dazzling event, was the total conviction, the wash of fresh light that the soloist shone on a familiar work. The pointilist precision that turned runs into taut little storylines and chords into multi-hued meditations; the unexpected accent that reconfigured a phrase into something witty or piercing; the ache and yearning of his lyrical lines, made more powerful by his never milking them … All these details and more were molded into something by turns gripping, lush, wistful, wanton; and, in sum, rhapsodic in the broadest sense of the term. --San Francisco Classical Voice

Trifonov's performance was a marvel, a mixture of exuberance and fabulous subtlety. --The Guardian