"Grinberg's art conceals energy of enormous power. Appealing to the listener's best spiritual qualities, it evokes a powerful and joyful response… Grinberg introduces a beautiful world of Beethoven's sonatas to the listener in a simple manner, without affectation, without a sense of distance separating a worldly-wise artist and an unsophisticated listener. Ingenuousness and sincerity show in primordial intonation freshness of the performance."
"Grinberg's rendition is totally beyond academism. Her play at every given moment is marked with inimitable originality of the pianist's individuality, with the finest shades of Beethoven's noted accurately disclosed in rendition. By way of the pianist's force of inspiration, a well-known text receives a new life. Her infatuation for playing, her honest and sincere tone, her will of iron, and mainly her bright figurativeness are captivating."
This what critics wrote about the interpretation of Beethoven's thirty-two sonatas by Maria Grinberg, a remarkable pianist and the last student of the great Felix Blumenfeld. Unlike her classmate Vladimir Horowitz, she did not enjoy the great worldwide fame, she was generally not allowed to go abroad, and the number of recordings she made was not large. Meanwhile, her contemporaries who were lucky to hear both pianists compared her manner with Horowitz. Another outstanding piano teacher Heinrich Neuhaus noted "earnestness, noble concentration of thoughts and feelings" in her play.
This makes the complete cycle of all Beethoven's sonatas featured on this Melodiya disc even more valuable. One of the largest music albums in the Soviet recording history is now reborn on CD.
