Gramophone Magazine

by Donald Rosenberg

In a programme-note introducing her new solo disc, “Sound of Verse” pianist Inna Faliks states that she was inspired by literature and poetry in choosing the repertoire. What’s also intruiging about the recording is Faliks’ prowess in rendering each piece with a keen combination of expressive acuity and textural clarity.

Faliks, a Ukrainian-born American pianist, plays these (Pasternak) pieces with the same concentration and attention to detail that she applies to the Ravel-beautifully limned and paced – and to Rachmaninov’s Piano Sonata # 2 in the original 1913 version. Intensely felt, her Rachmaninoff abounds in poetic phrasing and finely gauged drama.

Journal and Courier

“… is a rapturous work for the stouthearted pianist. The composer himself (Rachmaninoff) was a piano virtuoso with gargantuan hands, and it takes an artist with at least the same matching ego if not the digits. Inna Faliks has both … pyrotechnic performance.”

General-Anzeiger (Germany)

“Inna Faliks, born 1978 and living in New York, began with Bach’s Fugue in G Sharp Minor (Wohltemperiertes Clavier Vol I), which projected a great conviction from the first note. Altogether she succeeded in achieving a majestic conception. Beethoven’s Bagatelles op.126 also demonstrated a mature musical personality, which revealed the six miniatures, their inner content sharply defined without exaggeration. In the Sonata op 111 Faliks played with the courage to take risks and with an expressive intensity, which went beyond all technical perfection and showed a musician at rest within herself, as she constructed her interpretation with clear vision.”

  1. La Campanella, Paganini - Liszt Inna Faliks 4:53
  2. Rzewski "The People United Shall Never Be Defeated" (excerpt, improvised cadenza) Inna Faliks 8:36
  3. Beethoven Eroica Variations Inna Faliks 9:59
  4. Gershwin: Prelude 3 in E-flat Minor Inna Faliks 1:25
  5. Mozart Piano Concerto #20 - II Inna Faliks with Chamber Orchestra of St. Matthews 10:27
  6. Gaspard de la Nuit (1908) : Scarbo - Ravel Inna Faliks 9:07
  7. Sirota by Lev 'Ljova' Zhurbin Inna Faliks 7:45