Hamelin builds the Second Sonata… unerringly, producing a poetic and passionate performance that is finally carried off on a spectral wind. Hamelin… opens with an exquisitely textured Berceuse. He finds all the richness of the Barcarollem and responds fully to Chopin's melodic impulse in the two Op. 27 Nocturnes. ...hugely satisfying Chopin recital.

Listen to the last movement: this is indeed a fine example of supreme technical skill at the service of musical poetry.

This is a disc that takes you by stealth. Not simply because it opens almost unassumingly, with a finely wrought Berceuse, but because it was only after several listenings that one realises just how good it is. This is Hamelin's second recording of the Second Sonata and it shows how much Hamelin's pianism has developed during the intervening time.
Hamelin's playing is refreshingly free from the 'inverted comma' school of profundity, and he lets the music speak through him most eloquently; he doesn't get carried away with the subtext of the Second's Funeral March, keeping it flowing (with desynchronisation of the hands subtly done) and all the more effective as a result. In the slow movement of the Third he finds time to dream without ever becoming portentous, and is every bit the equal of Nelson Freire, whose Chopin sonatas have rightly won considerable praise. Predictably, Hamelin is wonderful in such things as the Scherzo of the Third and the visceral finale of the Second, though perhaps slower than you might expect in the neurotic Scherzo of No 2. In the finale of the Third he doesn't begin the build-up too soon, as can be a temptation, and even has a skip in his step.
The addition of two Nocturnes and the sublime Barcarolle simply confirm that though Hamelin has made many fabulous discs, particularly in repertoire of superhuman virtuosity, this is one of his very finest achievements to date.

Hamelin's playing is refreshingly free from the "inverted comma" school of profundity, and he lets the music speak through him most eloquently. …though Hamelin has made many fabulous discs, particularly in reportoire of superhuman virtuosity, this is one of his very finest achievements to date.

Because he seems to start from a position of being able to play all the notes without any apparent difficulty, he is able to concentrate on aspects of the music that you rarely get to hear elsewhere. Chopin often hides melodies in the inner parts and while for most pianists it is hard enough to make them heard at all, Hamelin is also able to give them shape and a real sensitivity.