Videos

Thomas Adès: Works for Solo Piano

• Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face

• Still Sorrowing, Op. 7

• Darknesse Visible

• Blanca Variations

Reviews

David Cortés Santamarta
Ritmo, September 2020

“Las exigentes demandas interpretativas son expuestas con una absoluta implicación y una capacidad técnica deslumbrante por el joven pianista Han Chen (The challenging interpretive demand was presented with complete commitment and dazzling technical capacity by the young pianist Han Chen).” © 2020 Ritmo

Michael Quinn
Limelight, August 2020

“Chen is at his best where Adès is at his most introspective: the John Dowland-inspired Still Sorrowing – a sequence of dark refrains infused with troubling undercurrents—and Darkness Visible, atomised into stark dynamic extremes and haunting tremolando effects. Album closer Souvenir is delivered with a spare, hushed Debussyian quality that becomes Chen’s admirable feeling for its melancholia.” © 2020 Limelight Read complete review

Carsten Dürer
Piano News, July 2020

“Chen breathes life into every nuance of this music… This CD is remarkable in many ways: the music deserves to be played and listened to more often. And Han Chen proves himself to be a witty and captivatingly astute interpreter.” © 2020 Piano News

Anton Rubinstein: Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2; Three Serenades

• Piano Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 12

• 3 Serenades, Op. 22

• Piano Sonata No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 20

Reviews

James Harrington
American Record Guide, May 2020

These are big works with tons of notes on every page. Chen’s ability to sort through it all and bring out the big romantic melodies and fairly straight-forward harmonies with the utmost of musicality and, of course, the requisite virtuosity is superb.

This disc is a good discovery for me. … Great recorded piano sound and informative notes make for a great way to introduce yourself to this composer and his large-scale piano works. © 2020 American Record Guide Read complete review on American Record Guide

James Manheim
AllMusic.com, March 2020

…Han Chen…delivers ideally clean, liquid readings of two sonatas and the set of short serenades here. The Piano Sonata No. 1 in E minor, Op. 12, features lots of virtuoso octaves grafted onto Schubertian melodies, and Chen does well not to lose the melodic aspect. The Piano Sonata No. 2 in C minor, Op. 20, also from the middle of the 19th century, has a fascinating opening movement in which exercise-like material finally coheres into spectacular virtuosity, and here again, Chen’s control serves him well. © 2020 AllMusic.com Read complete review

Franz Liszt: Transcriptions from Operas

• Weber - Oberon: Overture, S574/R288

• Fantasie sur des motifs favoris de l'opera La sonnambula (1st version), S393/R132

• Schwanengesang und Marsch aus Hunyadi Laszlo, S405/R160

• Halloh! Jagdchor und Steyrer aus der Oper Tony, S404/R159

• Bellini - I puritani: Introduction et polonaise, S391/R130

• Weber - Freischutz Fantasie, S451/R284

• Festmarsch nach Motiven von E.H. z. S.-C.-G., S522/R51

Reviews

Jed Distler
ClassicsToday.com, April 2016

It isn’t just Chen’s assured, elegant and totally effortless technique that blows me away, it’s also his idiomatic flair, his use of color and touch to convey character, plus a gift for textural variety and differentiation that one associates with golden age legends. © 2016 ClassicsToday.com Read complete review

Jeremy Nicholas
Gramophone, March 2016

Perhaps the two most notable performances here are the fantasies on themes from La Sonnambula and Der Freischütz. The latter was given its premiere recording by Howard in 1999 when the score was still unpublished, a superb work despite the somewhat contrived thematic combination towards the end. Han Chen gives a more muscular and, frankly, even more thrilling performance than Howard, and is recorded in a more focused acoustic. But whether it be hyphenated Weber, Bellini, Erkel or Ernst II von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Han Chen is impressively commanding and authoritative. © 2016 Gramophone Read complete review on Gramophone