‘A concert grand piano is a thousand-pound machine … the machine sings beautifully on 'Chopin: Late Masterpieces', Stephen Hough's new recording for the Hyperion label … [Third Piano Sonata] Hough's playing of the opening melody suggests that he has thought hard about how it would sound if it were sung by a soprano … I've gone through various canonical Chopin recordings—including accounts of the Third Sonata by Cortot, Lipatti and Rubenstein—and found none on which the melody coalesces into such an acutely vocal shape’ (The New Yorker, USA)

‘I was won over by the lovely tone and touch, the seductive warmth and clarity of the inner parts and the beautifully judged rubato … it carries ringing conviction’ (The Sunday Times)

‘Hough's fingers probe and caress; textures and colours dance and blend with cleansing clarity’ (The Times)

«Dessiner, sous un toucher souvent piano, des rythmes aussi souples et nets n'est pas un don du ciel mais le signe d'une impeccable discipline, doublée d'une grande écoute de l'instrument … [Kolesnikov] a su combiner vingt-quatre pour dérouler une histoire qu'il inscrit dans les paysages changeants. Tonalités, caractères, tempos finissent par créer une œuvre nouvelle, qui vaudrait plus que la somme de ses éléments» (Diapason, France)» More

‘Hewitt is not given to grand effects, whether an extreme rubato or rude dynamic change. Still, she can play grandly as well, as we hear on her powerful performance of the great Fantaisie-Impromptu in C sharp minor. This new recording of the nocturnes is what Marlon Brando would have called, if he had cared, a contender. It's richly recorded and beautifully played: it has art's final seal’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘Angela Hewitt is a sound buy … the delicacy of touch and manicured precision of the phrasing is a delight’ (The Scotsman)

‘In a catalogue boasting many distinguished Chopin Nocturne cycles, Angela Hewitt's commands attention’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘One of the most elegant pianists around, the Canadian virtuoso Angela Hewitt interrupts her epic Bach and Couperin cycles for Hyperion to explore some of Chopin's most refined music, the complete Nocturnes and Impromptus. Hewitt's innate sophistication and delicacy of touch are perfectly suited to these exquisite pieces, 25 of them over two discs, by a master of the genre at the height of his fragile powers. Spanning almost his entire creative life, the Nocturnes amount to a remarkable graph of Chopin's emotional maturity, touchingly reflected in the affectionate care Hewitt brings to what sounds like a labour of love’ (The Observer)

‘An electric current sizzles in this pianist’s fingertips … a wizard of the piano’ (Financial Times)

‘A rare opportunity to sample Chopin the song composer, here performed with real feeling by Polish mezzo Urszula Kryger. The dark core of melancholy in Kryger's voice is fine-tunes to the Slavic melodic contours of a song like The Sad Stream. And her instinctive grasp of both musical and verbal inflection makes for a beautifully understated performance of Melodya, Chopin's last, heartfelt song of exile’ (Gramophone)

‘Ohlsson brings a phenomenal variety of expression and depth of characterisation to these exquisite miniatures—an approach that manages to capture the folk elements of the composer's style to quite hypnotic effect’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘The leading British virtuoso has championed the byways of the piano literature since his award-winning Hummel concertos disc for Chandos. That he is also the most compelling interpreter of the mainstream classics is demonstrated by this winning collection of the 17 canonical masterpieces—and a handful of "encores" … his delicious lilt and rubato always seem perfectly judged, and he sweeps us off our feet with the twinkle-fingered brilliance of his dashing F major waltz … a mesmerising collection’ (The Sunday Times)