April 17th, 2019
“ […] Russian soloist Denis Kozhukhin gave a superb performance combining great power and virility…along with musicality and subtlety all delivered with consummate technical ease. The first movement cadenza was notably dramatic and poetic. The ending to the final movement was particularly splendid. […] ”
Brahms: Fantasies No. 1 in D minor
“In Beethoven anniversary year, there will probably be many more “Moonlight”s, meaning the Sonata, than the real thing (though we’ve been lucky to see the crescent in close conjunction with Venus these past two nights). Not many pianists would dare to place it at the beginning of a programme. Denis Kozhukhin’s paradoxically no-nonsense poetry meant that a constant sense of motion culminated in the whirlwind of the finale, a steady move towards implosion mirrored in the piano transcription of Ravel’s La Valse at the end of the programme. In between came perfection in the form of pure song from Schubert and Grieg.”
