Over het album

This is the third live & session recording series of Sydney Symphony and Mr. Ashkenazy's "Composer Festival", featuring Prokofiev in 2009, following Rachmaninov (2007) and Elgar (2008). This Prokofiev series also includes complete piano concertos with Russian pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk.

Underneath Prokofiev’s cheeky wit, sarcasm and brilliance was a romantic soul, which audiences will discover in his Third Piano Concerto. This is why he Third Piano Concerto, the romantic Prokofiev shines through when Alexander Gavrylyuk joins Ashkenazy and the Sydney Symphony. Prokofiev was capable of lyrical and irresistible melodies. And then the unusual Fifth Piano Concerto, with its five movements shimmering like a string of finely cut jewels. (source: Sydney Symphony Orchestra)

"Prokofiev's first, third and fifth piano concertos are some of the most ferociously taxing in the repertory. Gavrylyuk easily surmounted their challenges with a seductive mixture of brilliance and sensitivity. Relentless torrents of notes and chords were not only dispatched with stunning speed, power, clarity and precision. They were also shaped with purpose and insight. By contrast, Gavrylyuk's deft lightness of touch, rhythmic alertness, and tonal variety (sparklingly bright in faster passages; warmly refined in slower, softer sections) captured Prokofiev's trademark moments of wistful introspection and mercurial playfulness."- The Australian about the performance in the concerts/live recordings for this cd