Given the adrenaline, athleticism and endurance that a pianist must summon simply to get through the score of Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto, let alone to play the notes with such astounding accuracy as we heard here at the Barbican Hall, Denis Matsuev cut a startlingly unruffled figure as he seated himself at the piano. Thirty minutes later – almost, it seemed, as his hands were whipping the closing chords of the Finale tempestoso – he leapt to his feet and rushed to embrace Noseda. If he’d worked up a sweat performing what is one the most technically demanding of all piano concertos, then his urbane calm revealed no hint of it. It was a remarkable performance: after all, one critic at the September 1913 premiere, at which the student Prokofiev was himself the soloist, remarked that the concerto left its listeners ‘frozen with fright, hair standing on end’. ...

Aujourd’hui, le nombre de grands virtuoses a augmenté, mais Denis Matsuev est un phénomène à part en matière de maîtrise de tous les paramètres avec cette solidité d’airain. Vivre une telle Sonate en si mineur en vrai, c’est un peu comme se trouver le jour d’une éclipse du soleil avec un ciel totalement dégagé à l’endroit précis de la planète où le phénomène est total. ...