This 2-CD collection illustrates Kissin's technical prowess and depth of expression, bringing together his great Liszt recordings on RCA Red Seal and Sony Classical. Recorded between 1987 and 2003, this set contains live recordings from Carnegie Hall, New York and Suntory Hall, Tokyo.

The five Liszt Transcendental Studies bring reminders of Kissin's own transcendental technique with a range of dynamics and colour capable of transforming the keyboard into a full orchestra. ... few meet Liszt s audacious challenges with a more daring spontaneity. Gramophone.

EVGENY KISSIN PLAYS SCHUBERT/BRAHMS/B - DVD Movie

KISSIN / DAVIS / LONDON S. O. BEETHOVEN: PIANO CONCERTOS N. 1/5

Concerto No. 2, Op 18 (1) Moderato: Allegro (2) Adagio sostenuto (3) Allegro scherzando Etudes-Tableaux, Op 39 (4) No. 1 in C Minor (5) No. 2 in A Minor (6) No. 4 in B Minor (7) No. 5 in E-flat Minor (8) No. 6 in A Minor (9) No. 9 in D

Child prodigies don't always continue to rise, but this Russian wunderkind sure did-he has matured into the piano virtuoso of his age. He combines technical perfection with profound emotion as only the greatest masters can, and these are his mesmerizing interpretations of Etudes-Tableaux Nos. 1, 2 and 5 by Rachmaninoff; Intermezzo in A Minor by Brahms; three movements from Petrouchka by Stravinsky; nearly an entire disc of Chopin mazurkas and nocturnes, and more!

A wizard of technical control since his prodigy days, Kissin simply uses this as a foundation to probe the depths of such core repertory items as the ones on this collection. It takes a truly subtle musicality and grasp to make the endlessly recorded Moonlight sound fresh, but Kissin has the goods, pulling the carpet from underneath and making you really notice, with his unsentimental, steady tempo, how unsettling Beethoven's harmonic fluctuations are in a first movement of startling inwardness. Kissin allows the middle minuet to blossom within the sonata's larger nightscape, while he pushes the finale's cri de coeur to its heaven-storming edge. He likewise traces the late-19th-century gothic labyrinth of Franck's Prelude, Choral et Fugue with an absorbing blend of delicacy and power. But the real highlight of this disc is the gloriously brilliant intensity Kissin brings to the Brahms Paganini Variations. Listen to how he parades a dizzying, dazzling series of moods--from caressing introspection and bone-crunching, steely chords to the giddy cross-rhythms of Book II, Variation 7--to match Brahms's magnitude of invention. This is pianism of the first order. --Thomas May