Hamelin's original etudes...with their blend of tasteful lyricism and striking textures and harmonies, are as enjoyable as his homages...While brashly flaunting his influences (Gershwin, Poulenc, Rachmaninov), he sounds utterly individual. Of course, the composer makes all the technical difficulties sound easy to play in these vividly recorded performances.

...some of the most witty, charming, entertaining and devastatingly effective piano music of [his] generation...sophisticated yet accessible at the same time...no piano music lover can afford to miss it.

Hamelin the composer has the same kind of tact and imagination that Hamelin the pianist does...there's so much harmonic and contrapuntal interest in these works, so much sheer joie de vivre, such evident love for the instrument and its history, and such consistent wit...that even music lovers who disdain virtuoso excess are likely to be seduced.

a refreshingly cool antidote to those pianists who treat the technical challenges in Liszt's piano writing as an end in themselves. Hamelin takes everything in his stride immaculately, whether it's the unfolding of the contrapuntal lines in the B-A-C-H Fantasy and Fugue or the fine-spun melodies of the Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude, both superbly presented

Marc-André Hamelin has long been astonishing the musical world with his superhuman performances of the great virtuoso pianist/composers. Here he plays pieces he’s composed himself in the same style. The simpler pieces are affecting