PRESS

“Despax is a formidable pianist, thoughtful and imaginative. Like an expert painter at the canvas, he carefully layers and tones sound, expertly measuring touch and pedal. This is beautiful playing, on an elegant yet substantial album.”
— Natasha Loges, BBC Music Magazine (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Performance/Recording) - Après un rêve album, Signum

“One of the most wonderful French pianists … This recital, which celebrates the Belle Epoque, is of an exceptional level. Between two subtle transcriptions of Fauré's melody “Après un rêve” and Henri Duparc's symphonic piece “Aux étoiles”, Despax's playing, by turns biting, leaping and tender, makes Poulenc's “Les Soirées de Nazelles” sparkle. A “Gaspard de la nuit” by Ravel, astonishing in its ease, sonic imagination and virtuosity, is preceded by a delicious “Nocturne” by Cécile Chaminade, “Danse Macabre” by Saint-Saëns, Horowitz arrangement, and “Clair de lune” by Debussy that Despax whispers in our ear, a moment of pure poetry. What a great artist!”
— Philippe Cassard, L’Obs ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Après un rêve album, Signum

“Darkness and devilry lurk in the shadows of the latest recording by the UK-based French pianist Emmanuel Despax: Après un Rêve: Belle Époque: Nights at the Piano (Signum Classics). Embracing Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune, Cécile Chaminade’s Nocturne and Henri Duparc’s Aux étoiles, the mood is sensuous, the choice irresistible, but menace lies in wait. This beguiling tour of nocturnal French music dates from the turn of last century, spanning Camille Saint-Saëns’s Danse Macabre (1875) to Francis Poulenc’s Les Soirées de Nazelles (1930-36) … the works here particularly suit his sensibility. In Maurice Ravel’s haunting masterpiece Gaspard de la Nuit, he masters the ferocious challenges with ease, delicacy, and strength.”
— Fiona Maddocks, The Observer - Après un rêve album, Signum


“Après un rêve [is] 82 minutes of vividly recorded French piano music haunted by nocturnal dreams and nightmares, despatched with full-blooded power and melting tenderness by Emmanuel Despax ... macabre fantasies of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, the kaleidoscopic panache of Poulenc’s Les Soirées de Nazelles, a particularly heart-tugging Clair de lune and Saint-Saëns’ terrifying Danse macabre.”
— Geoff Brown, The Times (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Classical Album of the Week) - Après un rêve album, Signum


“As deeply committed as it was unfailingly stylish”
— Mark Berry, Seen & Heard - Wigmore Hall recital, London (FULL REVIEW)


“Despax can transform his sound and his outlook with remarkable dexterity; and whatever the spirit of the music - the calm radiance of Duparc's transcription of 'Aux étoiles', the malice-laced sizzle of Horowitz's sly embellishments of the Saint-Saëns-Liszt Danse macabre, the plush innocence of Chaminade's Nocturne - he conveys it with confidence and, when necessary, bravura.”
— Peter J Rabinowitz, International Piano - Après un rêve album, Signum


“Après un rêve is sound poetry. A recording of great interest and musical breadth that brings together many personalities … Despax gives life to the unspoken word and character to French music.”
— Marçal Borotau, Sonograma Magazine - Après un rêve album, Signum


“What beauty in his two Chopin concertos! … The tone is passionate, the virtuosity scintillating, the lyricism on the edge of the keys. The two slow movements? He sings them as a prince of phrasing. Discover Emmanuel Despax!”
— Philippe Cassard, L’Obs - Chopin Piano Concertos album, Signum


“Emmanuel Despax’s Chopin is dreamy, entrancing and fresh - The result is entrancing, with piano and string quintet intimately interweaving, adding extra strength and beauty to scores already potent enough with their melodic riches and romantic allure. And if you imagine the results might be rather dainty, you don’t know Emmanuel Despax. Coming after the eloquent string players’ long introduction to the First Concerto, Despax’s opening statement arrives like a blast of dynamite. Though he sinks happily into meltingly lovely reverie when Chopin’s intentions allow, he’s driven mostly by dark energy and muscular strength. In doing so, Despax reveals to us the music of a 20-year-old already stretching beyond decorative brilliance towards the powerful expression of contradictory, sometimes troubling emotions.”
— Geoff Brown, The Times (Classical Album of the Week) - Chopin Piano Concertos album, Signum


“When played with such aplomb as by Despax and the Chineke! Chamber Ensemble they are simply magnificent. Played with the authority, control and enthusiasm of Despax and Chineke, the results are breath-taking. Even the booklet notes by Bryce Morrison shift to reviewer mode and wax lyrical about these accounts. Despax’s touch and tone are immaculate and Signum’s recordings are sensational. Heartily recommended.”
— Guy Rickards, International Piano - Chopin Piano Concertos album, Signum


“Despax's pianism is all we know to expect from him by now: considered, eminently musical, deeply committed. He is clearly at home in chamber music, and the Chineke! players are most sympathetic partners.”
— Colin Clarke, Classical Explorer - Chopin Piano Concertos album, Signum


“A version of improbable agility…Despax’s legato tone and playing are fascinating, and the warm sound is combined with the performance of the five musicians of the Chineke! Chamber Ensemble, which live up to their potential. A performance of this quality really deserves nothing more than the best of the Signum Records label.”
— Marçal Borotau, Sonograma Magazine - Chopin Piano Concertos album, Signum


“It is that length and breadth, every dramatic incursion and the poetic parenthesis of it, that the immaculately dextrous young French virtuoso Emmanuel Despax and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in top form under the mature sway of Andrew Litton seem intent on revealing”
— Bayan Northcott, BBC Music Magazine (****) - Brahms album, Signum


“Despax is joined by his wife Miho Kawashima – note ‘joined’ and not accompanied since they alternate primo and secondo roles. As their performances testify, both clearly enjoy each other’s company. Despax demonstrates equal pleasure in the company of the BBC SO and conductor Andrew Litton in their performance of the Concerto. In fact, Despax first performed the work with Andrew Litton as a student at the Royal College of Music. Their long association is clear in this lovingly crafted recording.”
— John Evans, Pianist (****) - Brahms album, Signum


“Despax is one of the great thinkers on music, and this reading is at once considered and exciting ... It is impossible not to be enamoured of this performance.”
— Colin Clarke, Classical Explorer - Brahms album, Signum


“The Bach transcriptions featured here can help us find stillness better than any mindfulness tech. Despax channels the cleansing complexity of Bach.”
— Claire Jackson, BBC Music Magazine (*****) - Spira, Spera album, Signum


“Moved by the terrible fire of Notre-Dame de Paris, Emmanuel Despax dedicates his last album to JS Bach, the father of music whose spirit shines through the tributes paid to him by Liszt, Busoni and Siloti. A spectacular tribute opens, where the piano morphs into an orchestra, organ or choir, as resplendent in the Overture, BWV 29 as it is solemn in Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring transcribed by Myra Hess ... With intelligence and virtuosity, Despax dissects the dense textures of these transcriptions, making the labyrinths of the Chaconne and the great organ works readable without diminishing the emotional force of this music.”
— Melissa Khong, Pianiste - Spira, Spera album, Signum


“Despax is awe-inspiring in his combination of virtuosity and intellectual grasp. A fascinating album by a pianist of fierce intellect and consummate technique.”
— Colin Clarke, International Piano (Critics’ Choice) - Spira, Spera album, Signum


“A recital of becoming grace and gravity… all the freshness and vitality, virtuosic buoyancy and boldness one has come to expect of Emmanuel Despax”
— Michael Quinn, Limelight (***** Editor's Choice) - Spira, Spera album, Signum


“At a time when we need fun and escape, Despax’s offering, released on the Signum label, allows us to revisit a cherished familar in an imaginative, glorious way. The pianism, incidentally, is phenomenal, as is Signum’s recording. Despax is in a direct line of teachers from Claudio Arrau and it is clear he has inherited a deep, burnished sound and, despite the difficulties of his own piece, a real humility that always puts the music first.”
— Colin Clarke, Classical Explorer, The Sound of Music Fantasy


“It’s hard to imagine it being better played than by these forces, Emmanuel Despax displaying a wide range of colours combined with an easy virtuosity ... It requires prodigious playing from soloist and orchestral musicians to make it sound as effortless as here, and that it does is tribute as much to conductor Eugene Tzigane as to Despax.”
- Gramophone, The Romantic Piano Concerto album, Hyperion


“This is strong stuff, music of energy, power and sweeping passion, tenderness and lyricism too ... charismatically suggested by this lively, full-on and considered performance from Emmanuel Despax, attentively supported. The slow movement is rather lovely, a duskily coloured moonlit nocturne, and the Finale is fiery and devilish ... until a ceremonial fanfare interrupts ... but the pianist is undeterred by that, lots of notes and speed are maintained, twinkle-in-the-eye galumphing emerging. If the Adagio contains eddies of Elgar, then the tarantella last movement anticipates Wolf-Ferrari.”
- Classical Source, The Romantic Piano Concerto album, Hyperion


“Opus 28 requires far more than intellectual or pianistic mastery of the text: who plays it embarks on a no-return journey, physically and emotionally exhausting. Best is to do so while one is young and and fearless.
Emmanuel Despax may be proud of his 2016 record, at the start of what should be a long-lasting career ... the young artist’s poetic work of entomology left me speechless. Rarely has the text of these 24 pieces been thus read, enhancing the least articulation or pedalling detail in relation to tempi, sound weight, projection from a prelude to the next, from a group of preludes to another.
This is all the more remarkable since this work is not about superficially highlighting these findings, but rather incorporating them into a reading with singing sonorities, fragile even at times, graceful and light rather than fuliginous, and extracted from the keyboard, as it were: it is not so much Chopin by Delacroix that we are hearing, as Chopin by Ary Scheffer. Both are right ... there is no doubt that Despax is a Chopinian and will be - if not already so - a Debussyst.
An impeccable Berceuse drawn from the fingertip, with no pressure, as the pianist is transmuting his Fazioli into a 1900s Pleyel, iridescent as needs be. And an impressively conducted Barcarolle: beautiful yet never underlined phrasing, fleet of articulation, melting sonorities, an impeccable counterpoint in spite of generous pedalling ... intimate and very beautiful.”
- Diapason, France, five-star review, Chopin album, Signum


“Emmanuel Despax is giving us a powerful version of the Preludes ... The right hand cantabile is full of panache. The pianist is not pouring out, but deep into the keyboard and maintaining a lofty character preserving the different lines. No mannerism, no dryness either. A perfect flowing touch, with clarity in the arpeggios (a superb Prelude in F sharp minor), and effectiveness too (G major, E flat minor). With such maestria, Emmanuel Despax is keeping hold over his powerful emotions. He leads us through the different hues of sound into his personal journey, across the happier moments (D major), knowing how to create suspense and catch our attention, always on the edge (B major, C minor), at times taking a risk with a tougher touch (E major, G sharp minor, B flat minor). He can also breathe and let the melody guide him (F sharp major, B flat major) ... The Barcarolle would clearly have deserved to make the opening of the record. The successive lyrical landscapes opening up more and more in a swaying motion. Emmanuel Despax is a master in suspending time and of the bold daring rides that impose themselves. Here is a recital which reveals a personality we would like to hear more often in concert.”
- Pianiste Magazine, France, Chopin album, Signum


“The French pianist Emmanuel Despax is fast gathering a following and his Wigmore Hall recital displayed technical brilliance and individuality of interpretation in a wide-ranging programme.
Handel’s Chaconne made a majestic opening, its dance like Theme and twenty-one Variations containing a world of emotion within the formal constraints. Despax gave a personal account embellished with his own ornamentation. The adagio provided an effective emotional centre and led to an increasingly decorated and exciting climax.
Composed in 1904 and 1905, Ravel’s Miroirs still have the power to shock as well as thrill, especially from a pianist capable of mastering their enormous technical, interpretational and breaking-free demands. ‘Noctuelles’ is characterised by fluttering figures around a main theme, akin to an improvisation recalled Ravel’s pianist-friend Ricardo Viñes. Despax’s approach to the set was powerful yet transparent and flexible. He rose to the challenge of the vigorous Spanish rhythms of ‘Alborada del gracioso’ with grace and energy, and the sequence closed with the exquisite resonance of ‘La vallée des cloches’.
Chopin's 24 Preludes explore each major and minor key. Despax brought the same quality of introspective improvisation, as well as the required virtuosity, to them, and those of a darker, melancholy hue were the most memorable (such as II, IV, VI and XV), which sat happily with the ethereal nature to be found of Miroirs. This thought-provoking and successful juxtaposition of music was rounded by two encores, a beautiful reading of Chopin’s Berceuse and then Despax’s arrangement in Bach/Busoni style of ‘Silent Night’.”
- Classical Source, Wigmore Hall recital, London


“Poetry fused with breathtaking technical perfection. A soloist with winged virtuosi fingers. This is first and foremost a musician that we had better follow very closely.”
- Concert Classic, Louvre Auditorium, Paris


“Emmanuel Despax is a formidable talent, fleet of finger, elegant of phrase and a true keyboard colourist.”
- Gramophone, Signum concerto album


“This soloist is as comfortable with the spectacular as with the more subtle and introvert passages - all with an impeccable finish. Beautiful playing from a captivating virtuoso.”
- Diapason, France, Signum concerto album


“A master colourist with genius-like ability ... There was some truly magisterial musicianship at work here, his pacing of the long closing dissolve faultless and Liszt’s prodigal pianistic effects seeming to be lit from within. As with all the best Liszt pianists, you got the feeling that Despax was not so much playing the music as directing it, an approach that worked brilliantly in the Ballade, the clarity of his finger work and of his thoroughly prepared overview defining its wild drama with no loss of spontaneity and distinguished by full-blooded, expressive generosity.”
- Classical Source, Wigmore Hall recital, London


“It's not just that he has a formidable technique, total control over the piano's tonal range and a flawless memory - but he has a penetrating intelligence and an easy charm when it comes to communicating with the audience. Despax played the complete set of Chopin's Preludes: one of the great pillars of romantic piano music, containing some of the composer's most famous melodies. Each was made to seem a miracle of concentration, whether the mood was happy, sad, energetic or relaxed. Throughout the performance there was wonderful clarity to the playing, with each Prelude emerging as a perfectly chiselled masterpiece. The tender sadness of No 4 and the sombre stateliness of No 20 were particularly moving; whereas the brilliance of Preludes such as Nos 16 and 19 was breathtaking, especially when speed had to be matched by an extreme delicacy of touch.”
- Nottingham Post, Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham


“Hailed as a rising star, French-born Emmanuel Despax excelled, living up to the accolades of rapturous superlatives that audiences and reviewers around the world have showered upon him. From the initial fierce descending attack by the piano in the first movement Despax breathed new life into this popular work. His flawless technique, sense of precision in working with the orchestra and his ability to project an unassuming strength of emotion created a spellbinding performance.”
- The Press, Schumann concerto, CSO Masterworks Series, New Zealand