“His tempos, kaleidoscopic tonal colouring, textual clarity, and amazing dynamic range and variety of touch manifest an innate empathy with the composer...These are inspired performances with Award Winner written all over them. The perfectly-voiced piano, the venue/acoustic, producer and engineer, and an artist who was born to play Ravel combine to make the best complete Ravel cycle on disc.” --Classic FM, April 2011 *****
Gramophone Awards 2011 Finalist - Instrumental
BBC Music Magazine Awards 2012 - Instrumental Finalist
“[Gaspard] is technically immaculate...and gently seductive before turning on a more sinister pressure..."Alborada" from Miroirs is another striking success, where a trickster's ribaldry and high jinxs explode into violence, and in La Valse (suitably arranged and "orchestrated"), Osborne spins his dancers towards a visceral and devastating oblivion.” --Gramophone, April 2011
“Ravel essentially reimagined how to write for the piano with each significant work. Osborne is more than up to the task...Throughout, [he] repeatedly demonstrates not merely that these performances stand with the best, but also that comparisons are superfluous in the face of such a compelling vision...His sustaining of the 'Epilogue' is magical, as if not wishing to relinquish the spell of this recital. It is over all too soon.” --BBC Music Magazine, May 2012 *****
Tags:
Ravel Maurice
