Lortie more than meets the pianistic and musical challenge of Fauré’s unshowy virtuosity, his riding of each dappled ebb and flow of the Barcarolles reflecting a mature mastery. Nor is there just the rarefied Fauré on show, his insouciant charm and playfulness being to the fore and captured perfectly in the Theme and Variations...Lortie provides an object lesson in pacing of the Nocturnes.

[Ballade] The piece is an evocative, Impressionistic reverie, full of chromatic twists, unexpected dissonances, and other harmonic adventures. Lortie approaches this boundary pushing with a kind of nonchalance that makes everything seem completely normal, allowing the listener to relax and just enjoy the sonorities as they unfold.

The second volume of Louis Lortie’s series of Fauré recitals offers the kind of solace that repays repeated hearings, with the prospect of enjoyment increasing with each one….It is Lortie’s sincerity and naturalness, infused with the utmost sensitivity and a wide colouristic palette, that makes him a star shining only a fraction less brightly than the uneclipsed Thyssens-Valentin.

Lortie makes the best possible advocate for this underrated music.