With the present album, Ivo Pogorelich delivers his first Chopin album in over 20 years.
In this masterpiece he devotes himself to Chopin’s late works. He skillfully works out contradictions, deliberately puts his finger on the contrasts in Chopin’s works and makes them shine in their darker sides.

Ivo Pogorelich’s first studio recording in 20 years is finally here! The album includes two sonatas by Beethoven – No. 22, Op. 54, and No. 24, Op. 78, and Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Sonata Op. 36. Maestro Pogorelich has chosen these works to explore the profound influence of Beethoven’s revolutionary compositional techniques on a later generation of composers.⁠

Here, for the first time in a single box set, are the 14 extraordinary albums that Ivo Pogorelich recorded as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist between 1981 and 1995. The set includes original cover sleeves and new liner notes with recordings of works by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Haydn, Liszt, Mozart, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Scarlatti, Scriabin and Tchaikovsky.

Mr. Pogorelich is muscular and virile one moment, delicate and pristine the next… Mr. Abbado, with the London Symphony Orchestra, seems at one with his soloist… this fascinating release tells all.⁠ (New York Times)

Pogorelich brings all of his magnificent technique and virtuosity to these masterpieces. Second to none in sheer keyboard brilliance… everything he does is always done with princely authority.⁠ (Gramophone)

There are more ideas crammed into under 42 minutes than on many discs almost twice the length . . . the force of Pogorelich’s musical personality subtly and irrevocably shapes one’s view of the music. A truly extraordinary disc. (Gramophone)

Pogorelich bring a microscopic uncovering of detail, a delicate, expressive and constantly varied touch and an unswerving view of the long line. This is the Mozart of the great operatic ensembles, speaking through the keyboard. It is fascinating… (Los Angeles Times)

Magnificently unsettling, he offers a re-creation of the most concentrated force and drama, articulated with a crystalline mastery. (Gramophone)

Pogorelich netts beauteous results in the surrounding intermezzos, wherein his loving re-examination of the musical materials made sense. (Los Angeles Times)

This interpretation generously displays excellent structuring of music and sound transparency. (Stereoplay)

It’s impossible not to enjoy the scintillating agility of Pogorelich’s fingerwork and the liveliness of his imagination. Both these earlier, less frequently heard sonatas come up as if newly minted. (Gramophone)

Pogorelich is managing to do what Franz List intended when creating the music, which is to bring the sound of a piano closer to the sound of an orchestra, with the instrument reaching the very limit of its own capacities. (Marta Špoljarić)

I listened to the set straight off and found myself gripped from first note to last by the vividness and boldness of the imaginative conception, no less than by some very remarkable piano playing. (Gramophone)

With his highly stylized dances, its expressive gestures and its emotions, the world of Bach’s suites Manifestly finds Pogorelich not only on territory that is close to his heart but also at the very peak of his pianistic and interpretative abilities. (Klaus Bennert)

A 38-minute account that is larger-than-life both in sound and performance . . . there is much that is individual and enlightening . . . there are some great things here. (Classicalsource.com)

I think there can be no doubt that this is one of the great recorded versions of “Gaspard”. Prokofiev’s very slow waltz movement is beautifully sustained and this entire performance is full of interest. (Gramophone)

The magnificent Piano concerto No 2 with Claudio Abaddo displays the pianist’s spectacular virtuosity, his sense of excess, of a lasting ecstasy, a limitless sound palette, freedom in interpreting the score and composer’s remarks and, above all, the musicality which is always stunning… (ResMusica)

The Beethoven is quite fascinating for the clarity of execution, every note scrupulously placed, timed and nuanced. The Schumann is, on the whole, probably the most completely sensitive, literally the most appreciative, reading of the work that I can remember. (The Times Preview)

A Chopin recital including a dashing Sonata in B flat minor with a puckish Scherzo and a quick-paced “Funeral March”, and with that extraordinarily enigmatic (and epigrammatic) finale that is here a torrent of wind-blown autumn leaves from Pogorelich’s nifty fingers… (Classicalsource.com)

The very first album by Ivo Pogorelich was recorded in 1978 soon after the beginning of work with Alice Kezeradze which was the crucial point in young musician’s pianistic development. The release shows already formed talent, adventurous and imaginative, which in the selection of works by Prokofiev, Kelemen and Debussy heralds Pogorelich’s later artistic maturity.