CD TRASCENDENT JOURNEY
(SONY CLASSICAL) 2006
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE, UK
AWARD: CD of the Month
Performance * * * * * (Highest qualification)
Sound * * * *
JOURNEY TO A FIERY FINALE
On an unusual and superbly played recital
This is a highly original programme – definitely a 'journey'... and Juan José Chuquisengo clearly an enormously accomplished and unusually sensitive player...It might be hard to believe, but throughout this wide-ranging programme Chuquisengo is masterly, revealing an extraordinary range of colour and expression...from frail, distant pianissimo to coruscating brilliance, from touching delicacy to concentrated violence. A slightly brighter recording would have made the experience perfect. As it is, this is a remarkable disc
Stephen Johnson
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STUTTGARTER NACHRICHTEN, GERMANY
HERE IT IS INTUITION THAT PLAYS
...No doubt, we are before one of the most profound pianists of this epoch, pervaded in the spiritual experience of music...A recording of an almost painful purity – a stellar beautiful performance, a radiant reflection of heaven…We listen to these musical explorations which fuse the clearest conception and the most overflowing ecstasy…Here, it is intuition that plays. Here we go beyond the merely subjective. Chuquisengo can actually let things ‘happen’, which is almost impossible for one who is not able to let music flow through oneself…He owns a contemplative fantasy and, it is necessary to say it, a phenomenal technique…Let’s put it very clearly; the world has been waiting for such a pianist..."
Jürgen Holwein
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RADIO BAYERN 4 KLASSIK
(Most important Radio Broadcast in Germany)
RECOMMENDATION OF THE MONTH
…The decisive encounter with the legendary Sergiu Celibidache drove Juan Jose Chuquisengo to keep himself away for many years from concert stages...Perhaps this is the reason why is he now such a fascinating pianist who already gave evidence of his enormous faculties in a brilliant CD of Ravel. But for him, virtuosity is only a medium, never an end in itself – this program is characteristic of this reflexive and profound pianist…Herein resides a deep sense, a proposal that goes beyond the intelectual due to the special atmosphere it creates…
”Transcendental” is this trip: it encompasses a whole world, incorporating totally diverse seasons, it moves between extreme poles of mistical calmness and archaic explosions, conjugating in turn the whole into a great musical torrent. And the performance, it goes without saying, is fantastic. ”Transcendent Journey”: The document of an eminent pianist.
Oswald Beaujean
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TEMPO, ENGLAND
Interpretation: 6 (Highest Qualification)
Sound: 6
Quality: 6
This is a gem of a disc, the individual items intelligently programmed to cast multible reflections on each other, superbly recorded and alluringly performed....absolutely peerless playing , incisive in rhythm, warm, colourful and with a seemingly infinite range of touch and dynamics....At the end a triptych of mighty Toccatas balance out the chorales: motion and attack rather than reflection and legato....A journey indeed, from contemplation to action.... The superbly original Foulds pieces have never been better played Chuquisengo's seamless shaping of Gandharva-Music makes one feel one is, finally hearing the piece as it is meant to be heard....
Calum MacDonald
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INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW, UK
...At a time when most aspiring virtuosos are busy touring the competition circuit, Juan Jose Chuquisengo took the unusual step of studying for several years away from the limelight. He emerged all the better for it....Since then he has been steadily building a distinguished career as a pianist of superior refinement and formidable technique. Throughout a recital of 70 minutes...he produces a web of golden legato sound with not an ugly sound within earshot.
...As though every texture, every downward pressure, every nuance has been carefully examined and weighted to within an inch of its life...Chuquisengo values interpretative purity above all, ensuring that the music he plays is allowed to sing unimpeded by interpretative whimsy and fancy.
His control of every musical parameter would appear to be absolute...There is nothing remotely plain or austere about Chuquisengo's (literally) seamless playing - none of the cold aloofness that occasionally characterized Michelangeli' s playing, nor the all-engulfing machismo of the Russian colourists, nor the spontaneous wizardry of an Argerich....There is something strangely unmemorable about it all - as though he has perfected the art of allowing the music to speak for itself.... An alluring recital, then, one of surpassing skill and exquisite finesse...
Julian Haylock
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CLASSIC NEWS
Artistic quality: 10 stars of 10
Following in the footsteps of his fabulous CD with piano music by Ravel, Juan José Chuquisengo has now presented a conceptual album which in its content and musicality is absolutely remarkable! The transcendental journey is truly shared by the listener.
The pianist has taken pieces from three centuries to concoct a musical collage, leading us step by step along the route and revealing Chuquisengo's multi-faceted gifts...His performance on this CD takes one's breath away. The atmosphere of the whole program gets under one's skin. I don't hesitate to put this recording in the same breath beside such peaks renditions as Michelangeli's recording of the Debussy Préludes, Gulda's reading of the Beethoven sonatas, or Liszt's piano concertos in the hands of Cziffra...
Benjamin G. Cohrs
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THE GRAMMOPHONE, UK
A TRIUMPHANT SUCCESS
...In fact ‘Transcendent Journey’ is a wonderfully refreshing and stimulating recital played by a highly gifted and thoughtful artist....His articulation and control of dynamics are remarkable, qualities again on show in Bach’s Toccata flowing effortlessly into Schumann’s Toccata and then Prokofiev’s. Somehow the sequence works triumphantly – as does the whole of this imaginative disc.
Jeremy Nicholas
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