Fanfare (USA) - November 2019
Peter J. Rabinowitz
This exceptional wife-husband team made a strong impression with a Saint-Saëns/Liszt program earlier this year and they’re even more impressive on this new release, titled Russian Last Romantics. Vitality is the key ingredient here—a vitality created through sharp articulation, crisp rhythms (with especially punchy treatment of syncopations), lucid textures, confident technical dexterity, a clear sense of the music’s throughline, and (most of all) an evident delight in both the music and the act of performance. (...)
Conclusion? You’re unlikely to come across a more committed reading of the Glazunov than this one; and the Medtner makes a significant contribution to its still-sparse representation in the catalog. As for the Rachmaninoff: This is much more contested repertoire, and Berlinskaya and Ancelle doesn’t manage to wrest first place from Argerich/Freire and Ashkenazy/Previn; still, they hold their own against the rest of the competition. (...) Worth your attention.
Conclusion? You’re unlikely to come across a more committed reading of the Glazunov than this one; and the Medtner makes a significant contribution to its still-sparse representation in the catalog. As for the Rachmaninoff: This is much more contested repertoire, and Berlinskaya and Ancelle doesn’t manage to wrest first place from Argerich/Freire and Ashkenazy/Previn; still, they hold their own against the rest of the competition. (...) Worth your attention.