[A] reminder of the awe-inspiring calibre of Emanuel Ax's Chopin... His technique in the daunting demands of the Ballades...is so masterly that you almost forget its comprehensive range or the way even the highest hurdle is taken with yards to spare. Again, when you hear him at 8'20" as he starts the long and intricate climb towards the Fourth Ballade's heavenstorming climax you may well wonder when you have heard this passage more subtly or grandly inflected...
Time and again you are made aware of how Ax, with his sumptuous tone and rhetorical grandeur, can contain even Chopin's most audacious gestures within an overall sweep and impetus as inevitable as a force of nature. Generous and big-handed, Ax's Chopin is noble, grandly aristocratic and, above all, heartfelt.
