John Lill has been taken for granted as must often be the fate of those who have been in the public eye since the 1960s. In these five concerted works Lill’s manly and ursine weightiness of delivery complements Rachmaninov ideally. Lill and Otaka favour the pesante approach. The accent is on grandeur and the music blossoms under such craft and philosophy. As we hear in the glitter of the finale of the Second Concerto neither Lill nor Otaka are indissolubly wedded to the wider span; there’s brilliance aplenty but sparingly applied. The same can be heard in the flinty and lop-tangled grandiloquence of the Tchaikovskian First Concerto. My, how good the piano sounds in this recording!
"...This is a very enjoyable, rewarding set. Collectors who already have one or more recordings of these works in their collections will find much to savour and enjoy in Lill’s pianism...anyone wanting to acquire recordings of these pieces for the first time will find John Lill – and Tadaaki Otaka, for that matter – a reliable and rewarding guide." John Quinn - musicweb-international.com
