Bempéchat’s playing was at every moment solidly assertive, crisp, and full of joy. What Schumann referred to as “heavenly length” in Schubert’s last works is also a kind of unearthly peace. Bempéchat’s deeply felt performance was beyond words.
Boston Musical Intelligencer
He created that illusion of intimacy which is the test of a Schubert player.
Winnipeg Free Press
It’s this synthesis of brain, heart and fingers that often escapes an era of less-patient young pianists who opt for the more immediate gratifications of dramatic contrasts and sheer speed. Bempéchat applies a classic temperance to his romantic sensibilities.
The Cincinnati Inquirer
This pianist possesses an uncanny ability to decipher those colorations of sounds which possess his senses, and to decode the emotions which haunt the human spirit. His artistry suffused by these immutable qualities, Bempéchat stands alone among musicians.
Tiroler Tageszeitung
[On Beethoven’s Sonata, opus 111]: A well-paced and dramatic opening Maestoso was followed by an intensely thoughtful and powerful account of the final Arietta, which simply left one to marvel at the humanity of the mind that created this music.
The Birmingham Post (UK)
Here is a pianist who is far from indifferent, who has certainly something to say. The stylistic purity of his Haydn; the dramatic sweep of his Schumann and the introspection of his Schubert all this testifies to an authentic musician.
La Presse (Montréal)
[His] playing is incisive, dynamic and full-bodied. An acute understanding of musical form and harmonic structure is obvious and, buttressed by a prodigious analytical process, consequently projects a rigorous accentuation of the demands of the music. This in turn brings about a new element of evolution at the level of the interpretation, not to mention the actual musicianship: refined though sober, absolutely devoid of any mannerisms, obsequiousness of sentimentality, and even deliberately objectified. A virtuosity void of superficial effects, and a technique strictly at the service of the music and of artistic expression, without even the slightest inkling of egotistical self-indulgence.
La Province (Belgium)
An excellent, mature musician with a seductive keyboard tone and a real affinity for the music of Franz Schubert…
The Detroit News
A feast of melody and gorgeous sound.
The Irish Times, Dublin
Bempéchat is not the kind of virtuoso we are traditionally accustomed to hearing. He has an enormous technique but is on the musicianly level that he distinguishes himself. He is above all not pre-occupied with brilliance. And this axiom was applied unto its very depths. He displayed great musical judgement and understanding which, through an obvious sense of stylistic clarity, was zealously guarded in both the smaller and larger forms. Bempéchat was ble to achieve a masterful balance of intellectual accuracy and subjective artistry. From the meditative to the dramatic, from the dramatic to the lyrical, he gave us not a single opportunity which migh have distracted us.
Drammens Tidene (Norway)
A brilliant, if not to say virtuoso technique was placed at all times at the service of the composer. There was something very wholesome and right in the fullness of his musicianship.
Svenska Dagbladet (Stockholm)
[This] pianist revealed an uncommon musicianship, special in that the artist’s personality, devoid of any affectation or idiosyncrasy, came through distinctly, clearly, and above all at the service of the music. It was particularly in the lyrical sections that one experienced the extraordinarily convincing depth and breadth of his introspection, even more pronounced in the slow movement.
Meininger Tageblatt
Paul-André Bempéchat delves with astounding depth, and through a secretive, probing introspection, into the sonorous realm of this hidden continent of the mind. This in turn enables him to leave, by virtue of subjective intuition, his unmistakable mark on the music.
Flensburger Tageblatt