In case any readers missed Aleksei Sultanov's Rachmaninov/Tchaikovsky concerto coupling on Teldec a couple of years ago (7/90), let me start by reintroducing him as the young Russian (from Tashkent, Uzbekistan) who won the Eighth International Van Cliburn Competition in 1989, when only 20. This Chopin recital reaffirms his truly prizeworthy pianism, and what impressed me most about it, even more than quality of tone throughout a wide dynamic range, was his care for detail. However swiftly despatched, every individual note is defined with pinpoint clarity—as the First Scherzo makes particularly plain. He also plays everything with unmistakable love. But still only 22 at the time of this recording last August, perhaps he has yet to learn that it's sometimes better to love wisely than too well. As the minutes passed, I began to feel that his espressivo con affettuoso lingerings were ever so slightly impeding the music's natural flow, or should I say detracting from each work's longer, more consistently sustained sense of direction. This is very noticeable in the F minor Ballade, in part because he takes it too slowly, anyway, for an Andante con moto. Nor, incidentally, is tension in the stretto carried through to breaking-point before the dramatic climax of silence and the five magical pianissimo chords that follow. Even in the opening and closing sections of the A flat Polonaise there are rhythmic yieldings surely out of place in such a heroic dance of defiance. But there are moments of true grandeur too, and the middle section is arrestingly urgent.
Pursuit of expressive detail in the first and last of the Scherzos (particularly in that nostalgic recurrent phrase in the main section of the first) somewhat lessens the contrast brought by their lyrical trios. In the second and third, on the other hand, Sultanov favours extreme contrasts of tempo to make his points. So these readings, too, emerge very much his own. As time goes on he will probably have more than a few second thoughts about timings of this and that. But both technically and musically he is obviously an exceptionally interesting young artist of whom we shall surely be hearing a great deal more. The Teldec sound is bright and clear even if not without a touch of steeliness.'