French magazine Diapason has awarded four stars to Illia Ovcharenko’s Manu Sinistra, with critic Bertrand Boissard concluding that the album’s main attraction remains the Bortkiewicz concerto.
Boissard praises the rarely-recorded Bortkiewicz Second Concerto for its epic sweep and lyricism, noting Ovcharenko’s more vibrant, limpid sound compared to Stefan Doniga’s earlier recording, even if the Andante’s rubato occasionally softens the touch. In the Ravel, he highlights Ovcharenko’s refined nuance and fluidity through the final cadenza, and finds the Prokofiev’s dramatic Andante and spirited Moderato similarly satisfying, even set against classic accounts by Previn, Béroff, and Serkin. Oksana Lyniv and the MDR-Sinfonieorchester round out what Boissard calls a very respectable, well-recorded result.
Manu Sinistra is out now on PENTATONE.
