Under their Music Director Alexander Sladkovsky, the Tatarstan NSO host seven annual festivals in Kazan, attracting some of Russia’s finest musicians; the opening concert attracted Yuri Bashmet and Olli Mustonen. This year’s festival marking Rachmaninov is taking place during the World Cup in Russia of which Kazan is one of the host cities. This naturally adds to the glamour of the event. ...

Der in Irkutsk geborene Denis Matsuev ist nicht nur einer der weltbesten Pianisten, sondern auch eine Schlüsselfigur im russischen Musikleben ganz allgemein. In Luzern spielte er das A-Dur Konzert von Liszt, zusammen mit der Sächsischen Staatskapelle Dresden unter ihrem Chefdirigenten Christian Thielemann. Dieser umrahmte das Konzert mit Ouvertüren eines Vorgängers an der Spitze des Orchesters, Carl Maria von Weber. ...

Le pianiste Denis Matsuev ouvrira la saison 2018-19 du TCE avec un récital qui, assure-t-il, promet d’être des plus passionnés. Le secret de son énergie inépuisable (256 concerts par an!) réside tant dans le rythme effréné de sa vie moscovite que dans l’aura du lac Baïkal, où il s’échappe deux fois par an pour un rituel revigorant… ...

With Russian soloist Denis Matsuev at the keyboard of a glorious sounding Steinway and Thielemann holding the baton I especially enjoyed the stormy feel and brisk tempo of the opening movement Adagio sostenuto assai which all combined to create remarkable drama. In my notebook I wrote a single word, ‘Phew!’ Throughout this commanding account I was immediately struck by the power and drama of the playing, it was real edge of the seat stuff. Matsuev’s pianism is remarkably strong, assured and often exhilarating. ...

This was a pair of concerts of Rachmaninov’s piano concertos commemorating the 145th anniversary of the composer. It also was uniting two musicians who are intrinsically linked by their association with Rachmaninov’s music. Denis Matsuev is among the finest Russian pianists, and since winning the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 1998, he has developed a formidable reputation for his charitable activities, including appointment as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. ...

Lundi 26 mars 2018, jour d’abstinence. Je veux dire que je me privai de musique la journée entière pour avoir le soir les oreilles fraîches et la fringale aiguisée. J’arrivai de bonne heure au Théâtre des Champs Elysées : une des plus belles salles de Paris avec son style Art-Déco, son plafond de Maurice Denis et la netteté particulière de son acoustique. Les plus âgés avaient réservé à l’orchestre et les plus jeunes aux balcons. ...

The superb Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) has had an annual residency at Lucerne’s Easter Festival since 2004. Two years prior to that, Mariss Jansons had taken over the reins from Lorin Maazel as Chief Conductor, and he stands as a true measure of the festival’s standard of excellence, the venue being the stunning Jean Nouvel-designed hall on the shores of Lake Lucerne. ...

Having performed in venues across the world, including the Royal Festival Hall, Concertgebouw, and Carnegie Hall, Russian pianist Denis Matsuev arrives in Hong Kong this month to perform a cycle of the Rachmaninov piano concerti. Denis’ journey to the great stages of the world began as a child, where he was immersed in a musical household. ...

From the opening, fanfare-like Vivace, Matsuev was in complete control, and used his instrument’s full range in the extensive cadenza (a recollection of the movement’s themes), which made the nocturne-like Andante cantabile second movement all the more effective as he demonstrated wonderfully reflective playing. ...

Wie Denis Matsuev (1975) het Tweede Pianoconcert van Sergei Prokofjev hoort spelen weet het zeker: dit is een meesterwerk. Het gaat misschien wat ver om te beweren dat Prokofjev dit werk speciaal voor Matsuev heeft geschreven – hij schreef de eerste drie van zijn vijf concerten in eerste instantie voor eigen gebruik. Maar voor elke uitvoering van het tweede concert deed de pianist Prokofjev toch wel even een schietgebedje. ...

Se dovessi fare una classifica dei compositori classici, questi due sarebbe senz’altro fra i primi cinque. Mi affascinano per il loro modo unico di usare la melodia, per la profondità e la peculiarità del loro linguaggio musicale. Credo che entrambi siano autori romantici. Sebbene Beethoven sia un compositore appartenente all’epoca classica, la sua Sonata op. 31 n.2, che eseguirò, è musica puramente romantica. Čajkovskij è un grande compositore romantico, sottile, malinconico, contemplativo. I due vivono in periodi storici diversi, ma hanno una nota romantica in comune. ...

L’unica cosa in comune tra Andrea Lucchesini e Denis Matsuev, due artisti diversi sotto ogni aspetto, è la passione per il calcio. ...

Scelgo la musica con cui mi sento in relazione in quel momento. Ho bisogno di provare affetto, connessione mentale ed emotiva con la musica che suono. Chimica unica. Se non provo questi sentimenti per una musica, non la suonerò sul palco. Al contrario, se i desideri del pubblico e i miei sentimenti interiori verso una certa musica coincidono, allora la aggiungerò volentieri al mio repertorio. Mi piace anche suonare opere che non sono molto famose ma allo stesso tempo assolutamente fenomenali, come il Secondo e il Terzo concerto di Čajkovskij, o il Concerto n. 4 di Rachmaninov. Molta musica classica geniale non è ancora abbastanza conosciuta, così cerco di modificare la situazione. ...

Denis Matsuev’s partnership with Valery Gergiev’s Mariinsky Orchestra on the orchestra’s own label has produced one of the must-have series of Russian piano concertos in recent years. This seventh offering finds the collaboration at its height with the pairing of the Second Piano Concertos by Rachmaninov (the First and Third already available) and Prokofiev (the Third previously released). ...

The magic continued through the entire night. For the next piece, a tall and strong man, with curly rich hair and a willful face, came to the stage. It was Denis Matsuev, called by some Siberian Bear, a man who knows how to get from his favorite instrument, the piano, really soft as well as really sharp and strong sounds. It seemed like the only parts of his body that he didn't use to press piano keys were his knees; the rest of his body, though, was on top of it. ...

As a tremendous bonus, Denis Matsuev, the 11th International Tchaikovsky Competition winner (1998), was along for the ride and torched the hall with an absolutely stunning Prokofiev Piano Concerto no. 2 in G Minor, but more on that later. Gergiev’s conducting and Matsuev’s playing comprised the main story Friday night. But it was Matsuev who, for a time, stole the show right out from under Gergiev. ...

Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto sneaks up on an audience. Matsuev made it dance gracefully over the opening music-box phrases, perfectly setting up the ferociously complex, dissonant and rhythmically obsessive gestures that later pepper the score. He managed to get a robust tone out of the Steinway, stopping short of clanging on these hammering phrases. The result carried the audience along, anticipating the next climax instead of dreading it. Both conductor and pianist relished Prokofiev’s prankster-like wit, quite different from Shostakovich’s barely concealed snarl. ...

The Second Piano Concerto, which on Sunday benefited from the iron-man keyboard prowess of pianist Denis Matsuev, comes tearing out of the gate as if on steroids and doesn’t take a breath until its three movements are complete. It covers a lot of ground, too — stentorian twelve-tone writing in the first movement, a sudden burst of bebop piano that crops up (uninvited but hardly unwelcome) in the finale, and in between, more ferocious passagework than most composers would pack into three concertos and an encore. ...