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Naxos Records
"Steven Mayer not only plays extremely well, he has interesting ideas about how
this music should sound. The Concord Sonata receives a magisterial performance,
but the music itself is so dense that it never sounds slow. Quite the contrary.
If Mayer sacrifices some typical Ivesian wildness, he compensates by allowing us
to hear more of what's going on in even the densest passages. Mayer's relaxed reading
of The Alcotts has special charm and warmth that's just right for this
portrait of two girls practicing the piano at home."
David Hurwitz, Classics Today
November 2004
***
"So, what could Steven Mayer bring to this piece that others haven't? Well, first
of all, he has the chops to pull it off—his playing of Art Tatum's music would have
led one to expect that—but, more, he has the musicianship to breathe life and import
into these notably dense movements. I particularly enjoyed Mayer's hearty abandon
in The Celestial Railroad; simply superb pianism!"
Scott Morrison, Amazon.com
December 2004
***
"Mayer's playing is revelatory, with lines thoughtfully spun out to show their relationship
to each other. His sound it subtly textured, with an ear toward balancing sonorities.
He reveals cohesion in the piece by means of emphasizing whatever is melodic, whatever
is contrapuntal."
Barela, American Record Guide
January/February 2005
"Steven Mayer's disc is far more than a niche-filling footnote for Liszt fanatics,
being at once an unusually worthwhile exercise in musical exhumation and a coherent
concert in itself."
Ian MacDonald, Classic CD
September 1991
***
"Steven Mayer plays with exemplary brilliance and refinement, and is given full-blooded
support from the LSO." D.J.F., Gramophone
September 1991
***
"A stunning coup d'éclat. Steven Mayer is a born Liszt player."
Adrian Corleonis, Fanfare
October 1991
"A born Thalberg player—borne out if you will, in the way he swings Moses'
Player, the big tune, through increasingly elaborate fantastications without losing
either momentum or cantabile pearliness, his spirited ‘Perils-of-Pauline' romp through
the Niobe Fantasy, the aplomb of the Konzertstück, and his salvation of the Queen,
so to speak, with prestidigital prowess."
Adrian Corleonis, Fanfare
May/June 1992
"Listen to Get Happy, Hallellujah, the sophisticated harmonic treatment of Lover
Come Back to Me and the whirlwind cascades of I Know That You Know and you could
be listening to the great man himself."
Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone
March 2005
***
"Mayer's performances are a treasure, and a great introduction to anyone curious
about Tatum's work. " Michael Anthony, Minneapolis Star Tribune
December 5, 2004
"Mayer is a pianist whose abilities match his presumption in reviving this music
and braving comparison with the original. This disc is a brilliant tribute from
one pianist to another."
Washington Post
July 17, 1994
Voices from Lost Realms
Gerard Schwarz conducts “Inner and Outer Strings,” one of eleven compositions on this all-Mayer disc. Other works include “Abandoned Bells” for piano (Steven Mayer) and excerpts from “A Death in the Family.”
~ Albany Records (1992)
Order online from Albany Records or from Amazon, ArkivMusic, etc.
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