Martin Helmchen - Press Reviews

Album: Shostakovich Piano Concertos

Martin Helmchen shows himself adept in all aspects of No 1’s quirky humour, No 2’s playful high spirits and – in the famous Andante – a nostalgic romanticism Rachmaninov might have been proud of… What makes this disc more special is a truly superb account of Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet…this is one of the most impressive performances of the work that I’ve heard in recent years.

Calum MacDonald, BBC Music Magazine, July 2011

A disc of exuberance and, as ever with Shostakovich, melancholy.

Fiona Maddocks, The Observer, 20 March 2011

Live performance: Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 2 

a pianist…with all the virtues – vision as well as virtuosity and vim – stipulated by his calling, not to mention a warm presence.

Paul Driver, Sunday Times, 3 May 2009

Helmchen gave a delightfully unaffected, affectionate, and note-perfect performance,

Classical Source, 27 April 2009

Album: Schubert’s Trout Quintet 

This is a marvellous disc, one of the most enjoyable I have heard in a long time… a great line-up of soloists, who seem to know one another very well, or to have clicked miraculously, with results that, in the case of the ‘Trout’ Quintet, are more completely satisfactory than any account I have ever heard of this work.

BBC Music Magazine, July 2009