‘Chopin’s waltzes are salon pieces, but always more than salon pieces, and Hough brings an astonishing range of touch to them. All those sophisticated inner parts and harmonic shifts are brought out with the greatest insouciance and style’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Hough's decision to record the eight published waltzes in chronological order allows us to gain a feel for Chopin's glorious development in this genre … essential listening’ (The Observer)

‘Every [Waltz] conveys the feeling of bodies in motion, skirts twirling, and hearts intertwined … you don’t just hear Hough’s fingers; you hear his soul … the Minute Waltz contains one of the best melting moments of all; I could feel my knees giving way … I knew I’d never get my shins kicked, or an ache in the heel: I was dancing with Chopin and one of the world’s top pianists’ (The Times)

‘Launching his latest album with the earliest of waltzes to which Chopin gave an opus number, Stephen Hough sets a sparkling tone for what follows on this altogether brilliant disc … Hough is a pianist with all the elegance, wit and virtuosity required for these pieces, yet he also finds the deep vein of melancholy that runs through many of them’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Hough's playing has such authority and panache, its balance between virtuosity and vividly communicated expression so finely judged, that every perfectly scaled moment is as intensely realised as every other. Few other pianists around today play Chopin with as much understanding and poised mastery as this’ (The Guardian)

‘Garrick Ohlsson’s complete survey of everything Chopin wrote for piano (including chamber music, songs, and for piano and orchestra) will delight the completist and the Chopin connoisseur. Ohlsson (who won the Chopin International Piano Competition in 1970) gives us accounts of this wondrous repertoire in weighty and commanding style, aristocratic and impulsive (but not lacking light and shade or contemplative contrasts) and, at times, very sensitive and searching. These vivid recordings were made in the second half of the 1990s and have previously appeared on the Arabesque label. They now sit very well in Hyperion’s catalogue’ (Classical Source)

‘The collaborative works receive particularly rewarding performances … Ohlsson arguably offers more consistent artistry than Biret, Ashkenazy, Magaloff, and Harasiewicz’ (Classics Today)

‘Hyperion's big deal … Ohlsson is a powerful and committed player, and is afforded very good sound by the engineers … this is almost certainly how these pieces were played in Chopin's time’ (The Mail on Sunday)

‘An attractively priced box set … Ohlsson is in a class of his own’ (Pianist)

‘This is an oustanding achievement, which any genuine Chopin lover and student of Romantic music should own … a landmark in the recording of Chopin's music … Garrick Ohlsson and Hyperion deserve the greatest success in bringing this important undertaking to such a consistently impressive conclusion’ (International Record Review)

‘These works require the utmost in panache and glitter, Demidenko's scintillating fingers provide that in spades’ (Gramophone)

‘Demidenko is one of the most outstanding modern Chopin players … as usual, Demidenko's superb technique is plainly at the service of the music, and he produces a breathtaking sense of mometum’ (International Record Review)