Although his first contact with the piano came as a child, it was not until the age of 16 that Arcadi Volodos decided to devote himself in earnest to learning to play this instrument. The gradual development of his career – far from the rivalry of piano competitions – allowed him to polish his dazzling technique. In terms of ability, bravura and brilliance, he is often compared to Vladimir Horowitz. A master of the most difficult works in the piano literature, he also writes – in the spirit of nineteenth- century composers of salon music – his own arrangements, in which he exceeds many of the seemingly insurmountable limits of performance. As an infrequent visitor to the recording studio, his every album represents one of the greatest occurrences on the phonographic market. Those releases prove that something more lies behind his extraordinary technical capabilities. In his recent recordings of Brahms and Schubert, for instance, he also displayed his lyrical side, delighting the critics with his feel for tempo and phrasing and the remarkable range of his piano dynamics, compared to whispers and velvet.
Bartłomiej Gembicki
