Pierre-Laurent Aimard

“Following Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s concert one understands the difference between a good pianist and a great one: the former works from the musical score alone while the latter plays with paradigms of culture” (Kommersant, January 2012)

“Liszt's "Les jeux d'eaux a la Villa d'Este" [was] followed by Ravel's lovely reworking of the idea, Aimard creating textures of dazzling beauty.” (The Independent, November 2011)

“Aimard has thought long and hard about what makes Liszt’s piano music so original and follows it down paths that lead to composers of widely disparate styles – an imaginative way to mark the anniversary for a musician who might not otherwise be thought an obvious Liszt interpreter. The Liszt pieces were thoughtfully chosen. [Aimard] made sure his tribute to the anniversary had its own story to tell. Liszt, after all, was a thinker, too.” (Financial Times, November 2011)

"Crisply voiced, transparent, expertly weighted in its slow-blooming, melancholy beauty, Tuesday's exercise in time travel and shared textures betrayed a sense that, for Aimard, the interest shown in Liszt by the living composers he most respects had persuaded him into territory he would otherwise not explore." (The Independent, November 2011)

"Aimard is a master of fine gradations of colour and weight, as was shown in Liszt’s Aux cyprès and Bartók’s Dirge, which had a similar huge melancholy weightiness. At the opposite end of the colour spectrum was the light and glitter of Liszt’s St Francis, echoed in a recent piece evoking flight by Marco Stroppa, and later by Messiaen’s Le Traquet stapazin." (The Telegraph, Nov 2011)

"But the greatest Liszt disc so far this year is The Liszt Project by Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Deutsche Grammophon)... Aimard speaks the music in considered, flexible, well-formed sentences - a typical manner of expression in the 19th century. The music never makes an impression through force, but with vivid coloring, in keeping with contemporary descriptions of Liszt's playing. Physically animated passages have a three-dimensional sense of motion: You feel as well as observe the resulting gesture." (Philadelphia Inquirer, November 2011)