It is a spell-binding performance. The standard here is of the highest. Colin Clark, Fanfare

This is a fine album in its own right and a triumph for Nosikova. …She plays with tensile strength and emotional commitment, but it cannot be denied that the lightness and glitter she brings to this music are a large part of its success. Lynn René Bayley

Nosikova’s ability to depict a wide range of moods and colors in this music makes this a happy recommendation." Henry Fogel, Fanfare

Liszt worked on the Années de Pèlerinage almost constantly throughout his life. The cycle consists of three volumes. The first, Switzerland, records Liszt's experiences while traveling in Switzerland in 1837-37. In a letter to the writer George Sand, Liszt wrote: “That musician especially who is inspired by nature, without copying her, breathes out in tones the tenderest secrets of his destiny: he thinks, feels, and speaks through her.” This philosophy pervades the first book of Années de Pèlerinage as it never had before in music. The second, Italy, reflects his impressions of travels through Italy with the glamorous Countess Maries d'Agoult, who was the great love and inspiration of Liszt's life. Their life together was filled with art, music, and literature, particularly the poems of Petrarch and the Divine Comedy of Dante, which they read to each other during evenings at a villa on Lake Como. The music of the second volume explores the inner reaches of emotion deeply and challenges the performer to interpret what Sacheverell Sitwell called "the lofty impressions of a sensitive tourist." The Third Year, published three years before Liszt’s death in 1886, is given mostly to solemn meditations on religious themes and to scenes connected with the Villa d’Este, the estate near Rome where Liszt lived during his stays in that city. Here we see an elderly and introspective Franz Liszt seeking to epitomize the consolations of faith in a setting of startling beauty and splendor. In its entirety, the Années de Pèlerinage is considered a musical self portrait that covers many aspects of Liszt's personality.

The Russian pianist and composer Lera Auerbach was born in 1973. Her music is powerfully communicative and, although concentrated in its organization, has the ability to transport the listener. Music is life. Life is music. The composer herself is fascinating; someone who writes music bursting with vitality and color - generous in its impact - yet is reluctant to speak about it. However, in her attempt to not disclose too much, Lera Auerbach is actually very forthcoming.

"I am afraid I would not be able to help with the interview. When I was younger I enjoyed writing program notes for my music: I felt it was a way for me to protect it from possible misunderstanding; one last service that a composer could do for his child before it is fully on its own. I no longer like writing about my music. Even being interviewed about it becomes an inner-burden. What I realized is that you can't protect your child and should just let it be without any attempts to explain or defend it. Sometimes letting go is the hardest thing to do. The music is out there on its own whether you like it or not; it's no longer under your control, and frankly, it never was. Revealing the chord that still ties you, as a composer, to your work only does your music disservice. "

"Let music connect directly to the listener regardless of the composer's own attempts to interpret its essence. Jorge Luis Borges wrote, 'A man sets himself in the task of portraying the world. Over the years he fills a given surface with images of provinces and kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fish, rooms, instruments, heavenly bodies, horses, and people. Shortly before he dies he discovers that this patient labyrinth of lines is a drawing of his own face'."
From Booklet's Notes by Colin Anderson

"Entitled, "Flight and Fire", this disc offers a stimulating fare of the piano music of the Russian composer, Lera Aurebach…Nosikova plays with fingers of steel; yet she can turn her tone inwards at a moments' notice, as in the quieter passages of the second movement. The elusive nature of the fourth movement is particularly spellbinding, while the concentration of the final Adagio religioso belies the studio conditions… Fascinating listening. It is hard to imagine a disc that does greater service to Auerbach's piano music." Fanfare Magazine, Colin Clarke, February 2008

"The really first-rate pianist Ksenia Nosikova enters into a competition with Lera Auerbach as an interpreter…It is not by chance that the composer dedicated the first sonata to her. From the "Fantasia" of the year 1986 to the "Il Segno" of 2006, the interpreter crafts a focused insight into the piano creations of 1973-born Auerbach. She clearly exemplifies the game with old forms of Russian precursors (like toccata or sonata) by cutting to the character. She elucidates the contrasts of introspect and "barbaro" expressions with large dynamic broadness." Fono Forum (Germany), Michael Stenger, October 2007

The Blissful Viola CD recording comprises of works for viola and piano by 20-century British composers Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975), Franck Bridge (1879-1941), and Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979). The first piece of the CD, the Viola Sonata by Rebecca Clarke (1919) stands as one of the composer's most widely recognized works. While it follows in the formal tradition of the German post-Romantic sonata, its melodic outlines, textures, and colouristic devices point out to impressionistic influences that often draw comparisons to the music of Debussy, Franck, or Ravel. Sir Arthur Bliss wrote the Sonata for Viola and Pianoforte in 1933 for the great virtuoso and fellow Englishman, Lionel Tertis. This is one of several works Bliss wrote between 1926 and 1935 for specific virtuoso performers, each a reflection of the individual's unique musical character and capabilities. Often described as the successor of Elgar, Bliss's works are expansive, demonstrating an interest in illustration and outward expression rather then thematic transformation or introspective reflection. Like the Bliss's Sonata, Frank Bridge's Pensiero (1905) and Allegro Appasionato (1908) were written for violist Lionel Tertis. The works were commissioned as part of a project by Tertis to compile a library of British viola works that would promote both English composers and the viola as a solo instrument.

I must give special attention to the Avita Duo, a mother and daughter duo that has performed together for 10 years. They clearly have a trusting and intuitive partnership that is reflected in their absolutely impeccable rhythm and timing. These pieces are so dissonant and demand so much understanding from the performers—it really is so beautiful to hear how these performers work together to bring Auerbach’s strange, ethereal, disastrously beautiful pieces to life. Jacqueline Kharouf

Phenomenal instrumentalists in the service of music that is clearly of huge consequence. Colin Clarke, Fanfare

… an absorbing recording. Dramatic performances of compelling works for violin and piano. Henry Fogel, Fanfare

This disc presents an interesting collection of three relatively unfamiliar piano concertos: Liszt's phantasmogorical and brilliant Malèdiction for Piano and Strings composed in 1833, when Liszt was 22 years old and in the midst of his virtuoso career; Concerto in A minor by Mendelssohn, writen by 13-years-old Mendelssohn in 1822, a juvenile work but testamental of the composer's childhood genius; and the delightful Clementi's Piano Concerto in C major, which was written in the 1780's and survived only in a copy made in 1796 with altered instrumentation by a third party. The Malèdiction is excellent and one of the best recordings ever made of this piece; the performance succeeds in maintaining a dramatic argument for the whole 15 minute movement with admirable cooperation between the soloist and accompaniment, rather than a piece that maintains only for certain sections, as is common to recordings of the work. All Music Guide, April 2010

an interesting and worthwhile recording...leaves me wanting to hear more. Burton Rothleder, Fanfare, March-April 2010

A collector would be hard pressed to obtain a tripling of more convincing performances of such rarities on one CD, and all played with a twinkle in the eye, a simultaneously wistly penetration (especially the Mendelssohn), and a self-effacing validity that carries these musical "Footnotes" into the realm of the absolutely listenable- and perhaps memorable, as well. Melvyn M. Sobel, Amazon.com, April, 2010