'Alessio Bax is living and urgently needed proof that competition triumphs are still meaningful; something to associate with playing of the highest calibre. His performance of Brahms's Paganini Variations is sufficiently prodigious to invite comparison with such luminaries as Michelangeli and Géza Anda. Yet his virtuosity is effortless, lyrical and never hard-driven; and while others struggle to clarify Brahms's potential opacity, Bax makes light of every devilish demand' (Gramophone)

'After a long period with only a few new Brahms releases, it seems that now every major record company has found an interesting pianist to record the piano music of the German cigar-chomping master. British pianists are among the leading interpreters, including Barry Douglas, Jonathan Plowright, Martin Jones and Leon McCawley. All have released very fine recordings, although the benchmark remains the recording by Julius Katchen, which has never been out of the catalogue. I sincerely hope Alessio Bax's Brahms will also stay in the catalogue and that he will continue to record more Brahms. His enthusiastic performance of the Paganini Variations is enough to secure him a place among the very best. It is not only his technical prowess that I cannot stop praising, but also, as in the Four Ballades, the high quality of his musicianship. He carefully lays out the complex emotions of the nearly half-hour-long Klavierstücke opus 35 in a way that many seasoned pianists would envy. The finely recorded piano is heard to its full advantage in a naughty Bax arrangement of the Fifth Hungarian Dance, already made impossible to play by Cziffra. It's as if Bax is saying 'come on, I can do anything'. And perhaps he can' (Pianist)