Philadelphia Inquirer review of my Philadelphia recital last week.
“The strengths of the pianist found an expressive home in Shostakovich. Solzhenitsyn chose four of the Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, and each was of such boldly different character that they formed a satisfying portrait of the pianist. That golden tone drew you in at the start of the fugue in the No. 1 in C Major. This was the pianist as beauty. No. 8 in F Sharp Minor was about how making a circus of somber events can somehow just make a moment all the more inconsolable. The knotty chromaticism of No. 19 in E Flat Major gave Solzhenitsyn a powerful chance to contrast the proud chorale-like prelude with a fugue of fearsome clusters. He ended with No. 24 in D Minor, whose Brahms-like beginning didn’t last, and which seemed to evolve the pianist into an artist of fearsome intensity.”