Pavel Kolesnikov was born in Siberia, and trained in Moscow, before transferring to the Royal College of Music, and is now, luckily for us, a long term London resident. Some time back he produced a marvellous album of Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, which showed how natural, warmly unaffected, and unassuming his playing is. He’s ideally suited to the Mazurkas, where poetic expression matters so much more than the kind of barnstorming required in some of Chopin’s bigger pieces like the Polonaises, and the Ballades. Chopin wrote Mazurkas throughout his career, and they are elusive works, mainly short and undramatic, and therefore not so attractive to a lot of recitalists. Kolesnikov obviously regards their restraint as an asset, and here gives exquisite performances of 24 of them. This young man will be a major force in the future. And this is an album no Chopin lover should be without.

Classic FM