Even in an impossibly competitive field Demidenko's Liszt Sonata stands out among the most imperious and articulate. His opening is precisely judged and once the Sonata is under its inflammatory way his virtuosity is of a kind to which few other pianists could pretend. The combination of punishing weight and a skittering, light-fingered agility makes for a compulsive vividness yet his economy in the first cantando espressivo, sung without a trace of luxuriance or indulgence, is no less typical. There are admittedly times when he holds affection at arm's length, but just as you're wondering why he commences the central Andante so loudly he at once withdraws into a wholly apposite remoteness or reticence. The final climax, too, is snapped off not only with a stunning sense of Lisztian drama but also with an even truer sense and understanding of Liszt's score and instructions.
Demidenko's couplings are no less autocratic, with a capacity to make seemingly arbitrary ideas sound unarguable. His Légendes are far from benign, yet his tautness and graphic sense of their poetic power carry their own authority. He's in his element in the Scherzo and March's diablerie, music which, coming after the two Légendes, affects one like an upside-down crucifix, or some dark necromancy. The recording is outstanding.