Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No 3, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

Denis Matsuev is an amazing pianist. He shapes the Third Concerto's fistfuls of notes with consummate mastery. The work's opening theme has an easy elegance that's very beguiling, and Matsuev shapes the more massive of the two cadenza alternatives with great power. In the finale, the opening theme never sounds merely scrambled, and the massive chordal second subject builds in huge crescendos, but Matsuev never bangs or loses control. With the Paganini Rhapsody, each variation has shape and character, and the closing few really do offer a clinic in virtuoso keyboard artistry. The variation in triplets right before the famous 18th is particularly noteworthy: very ominous, louder, and darker than usual.

As one might expect from someone hailed as Horowitz's successor, Matsuev holds that most titanic of piano concertos in a passionate embrace, lavish with his rubato, devastatingly certain in his articulation, sensitive to colour and balance, aware of how to pace and thus make coherent the architecture of this massive work. Importantly, for all his physical power and energy, he never makes a hard sound. There's commensurately sympathetic playing from the Mariinsky, who also match Matsuev's deft, vibrant musicianship in the brittler Rhapsody.

Here, for once, is the level of artistry that the work needs. Denis Matsuev's phenomenal deftness is such that he can launch into the finale at an eyebrow-raising speed which he then has no trouble sustaining. And for all his seemingly endless reserves of technical power, he never makes an ugly sound ... The Paganini Rhapsody is another memorable experience, with Matsuev and Gergiev darting unerringly between the music's extremes of fantastical virtuosity and tight-reined lyricism.

What a pianist! Denis Matsuev is a phenomenon. Here he proves that he can associated his virtuosity with a real sense of style and aesthetic.