CD Review - Gabriela Montero: Bach and Beyond
This is compositional improvisation at the highest possible level, stunning, and full of everything that music is, or is supposed to be... the highs, the lows, the amazingly transparent technical ability. Not only is she a brilliant performer of the legendary composers such as Chopin, Bach, Granados and some of the modernists like Prokofiev and others, but she has entirely absorbed their musical idiom and can call upon it at will in dazzling display. I listen to a lot of everything and I am completely blown over with her depth of expression and transcendent musical ability. I have been listening to "Bach and Beyond" for the entire weekend--it is recorded so well in every respect, from the sound of the piano to the performances themselves--that the highest compliment I can pay her is this: her talent is such that she could make a skeptic believe in God. Her many hours of practice aside, I truly believe that's the only place where her improvisational gift could possibly come from, for she has said herself that the music she plays is not filtered through the mind. I hope to hear her live when I have the chance. A treasure. "”Poptop.