Press
“A concert to remember”
Under his fingers, Khachaturian’s concerto, as expected, gains a strong emotional charge, especially in the third movement where the echoes of Caucasian music are most apparent. Gasparian’s tone is rounded and powerful, yet never aggressive or overly sentimental ; he possesses a refined performing intuition, winning over the listener without relying on external effects, through an unambiguous, classical, and pure interpretative expression, in a flawlessly conducted dialogue with the orchestra and Maestro Raiskin.
Read the articleMarija Ćirić
Radar Nova (RS), June 2025
“An ideal combination of refinement and technical brilliance”
The piano-writing is dazzling, realised with an ideal combination of refinement and technical brilliance by the young Paris-born Gasparian, whose family have Armenian roots.
The most ambitious Babadjanian piece here is the Polyphonic Sonata composed in 1946-47 and revised in 1957. It's powerfully impressive music, and while there have been earlier recordings (including a historic version by the composer himself), I'm not sure any of them are quite as gripping as Gasparian's account, which is phenomenally impressive (and in vastly better sound than Babadjanian’s).–
International Piano Magazine (UK), Autumn 2024
“A musician of enormous imagination”
Gasparian is a pianist of significant finesse and flawless technique. He’s also a musician of enormous imagination. [...] The Capriccio previews Gasparian’s extraordinary ability to explicate polyphonic complexity, a talent on full display in the three-movement Polyphonic Sonata. The second movement of this piece is a highly rhetorical fugue lasting a little over six minutes and its finale a bracing and fiendishly difficult toccata, all played with dash and élan. [...] A pair of Khachaturian pieces, the well-known Toccata and an excerpt from the ballet Spartacus, inspire kaleidoscopic colours and infinitely calibrated rhythms from Gasparian’s Steinway. This release offers the opportunity of hearing a great deal of unfamiliar yet interesting music played by a pianist whose manifold gifts are at once breathtaking and sheer listening joy.
Read the articlePatrick Rucker
Gramophone (UK), October 2024
“One of the most highly sensitive sound aesthetes in his profession”
Even as a very experienced visitor to the Böblingen Pianist Festival, one wonders whether anyone has ever produced anything more delicate on the grand piano of the Württembergsaal than Jean-Paul Gasparian. [...]
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In the Debussy pieces, which radiate poetic ambitions with their titles alone, Gasparian conjures up a musical cosmos that shimmers in infinite facets. [...]
Despite the mystical clouds that cover the hall during this magic, Gasparian's piano playing never loses itself in nebulous veils, but always breathes the intellectual clarity of a master.Bernd Heiden
Sindelfinger Zeitung / Böblinger Zeitung (DE), January 2024
“An aura of mystery”
Gasparian's manual bravura, his sense of the grand line and of Rachmaninov's nobility and passion lend the all-round perfect performance an aura of mystery, so that one is reminded of the virtuosos of the generation before last, of Horowitz, Janis, Ogdon, Richter or Wild, who illuminated the darker regions of Rachmaninov's soul with similar intensity.
Read the articleAttila Csampai
Rondo Magazin (DE), April 2022
“One of the finest Chopin recitals of recent years”
Paris-born Jean-Paul Gasparian offers one of the finest Chopin recitals of recent years, captured in fabulous, present sound that reveals every nuance of touch. The four Ballades are presented as a unit, in order, as four explorations of narrative. Gasparian is able to achieve perfectly the balancing act these present : the juxtaposition of virtuosity with luminous lyricism, all the while maintaining a line that sustains the momentum throughout the structure. [...] Rightly, the recital ends with the exquisite interior ruminations of the Polonaise-Fantaisie; it is right, too, to put Gasparian’s reading up there with the likes of Horowitz. This is a major disc. How sweetly Gasparian enables his Steinway to sing, how fully he grasps this music. Chopin of the very highest order.
Colin Clarke
Fanfare Magazine (USA), Autumn 2019
“This may just be the most phenomenal Chopin recording I've ever heard”
To call Jean-Paul Gasparian’s playing thrilling is an understatement, and he’s only 24. For the first 46 bars of the Ballade No. 2 in F Major, Gasparian lulled me into the barcarolle-like, gentle 6/8 rocking of the gondola safe in its slip. Then, at the Presto con fuoco, I literally lurched forward out of my chair. If you have a pacemaker, be sure it’s set to absorb the shock. I doubt that Chopin himself could have played the piece like this; it would have busted every string and spring in his beloved Érard, but not in Gasparian’s Steinway D 261, which offers no resistance or complaint. What a magnificent marvel of a machine it is. And what a magnificent marvel of a recording this is. The two Nocturnes, in Gasparian’s hands, are simply heartbreakingly tender and touching. [...] When you hear Gasparian play the “Heroic” Polonaise, it will be as if you’re hearing it for the first time. Urgently recommended.
Jerry Dubins
Fanfare Magazine (USA), Autumn 2019“A major Chopin release”
Paris-born Gasparian offers a fine Chopin recital to follow his debut album of Russian music. In Gasparian's hands the First Ballade is a multi-faceted jewel that ebbs and flows with impeccable technique. Parts of the Second are very beautiful, yet Gasparian's eye is on the large-scale and he draws full effect from the placatory coda. The Third is given a peaceful and spacious reading, while the Fourth, the trickiest interpretatively, plays to Gasparian's reflective strenghts. The Nocturne op.48/1 is a miniature tone-poem and fits logically into this interpretative context, leading to a glistening pair of waltzes (E minor and op.34/3) - the former bathed in moonlight, the second in sun. A crepuscular D-flat Nocturne is contrasted with a suitably muscular Polonaise, and the Polonaise-Fantaisie is full of exquisite mystery. Gasparian's Steinway is superbly recorded. A major Chopin release.
Guy Rickard
International Piano Magazine (UK), Autumn 2019“A highly accomplished chopinist”
Gasparian makes a convincing case that heroism is a form of aesthetic : the Ballades are both dramatic and tender, their lyricism conveyed through expert technical control. There is a fresh simplicity to n.4, with carefully considered and never contrived rubato. The Steinway D sounds glorious, with high-definition contrasts that bring out the poetry...
Claire Jackson
BBC Music Magazine (UK), Summer 2019