Album: Valentina Lisitsa, Live At The Royal Albert Hall (Decca)

 

Andy Gill
Thursday 05 July 2012 14:41 BST
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The Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa has built a huge audience through YouTube postings of her solo performances.

Her ingenious self-promotion has brought her sell-out solo concerts and now a proper recording contract, this Decca debut a guaranteed chart-topper. It helps that she is gifted: there's an admirable lightness of touch and appreciation of rhythmic flow to her "Für Elise", and her negotiation of Liszt's "Un Sospiro" is captivating. But this programme – chosen by internet fans – is too much like a Greatest Hits of classical piano and listeners will likely already have their own definitive versions of standards like the Chopin Nocturnes and the "Moonlight Sonata", with which Lisitsa's may struggle to compete.

Download: Un Sospiro; Moonlight Sonata

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