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Gramophone Review “PURCELL The Complete Suites and Other Music for Keyboard”

by Lindsay Kemp, August 2025

“…what intimate and wounded sorrow Sandrin finds in the Almand of the Third Suite, what an eloquent Purcellian journey is the Seventh Almand, and what emotional unrest, like lovers lost in an enchanted wood, he stirs in the Second Prelude. Sefauchi’s Farewell, one of nine extra Purcell pieces drafted in from other sources and distributed here through the suites, is full of tender melancholy (…) what these clever reimaginings are doing is searching for their soul”

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Purcell album featured on Presto Music’s “Piano Music Round-Up - Spring 2025”

by Matthew Ash, 16th July 2025

“his playing allows the music to speak for itself. Purcell had a gift for melody and for structural use of harmony, and Sandrin demonstrates a perfectly judged balance between being historically informed and sensitively using the scope of a modern piano to make a strong case for exploring beyond the music drama.”

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“Beethoven from a Youthful Perspective”

interview in PIANIST MAGAZIN (Deutschland, Österreich, Schweiz), Issue no. 2/2025

Cristian Sandrin in conversation with Stephan Schwartz-Peters

“Cristian Sandrin's extraordinary new recording of Beethoven's last three sonatas has not only impressed PIANIST magazin. The Romanian pianist, who now lives in London, brings together the different universes of Beethoven's late creative period.”

BBC Music Magazine July 2025 issue with five yellow stars, featuring the title 'Instrumental Choice' on a black background.

BBC Music Magazine selects Cristian’s Purcell album to be the Instrumental Choice of July 2025

review by Kate Bolton-Porciatti

“In the first complete recording of Purcell’s eight keyboard suites on the modern piano, Romanian pianist Cristian Sandrin sets the bar impressively high. His accounts blend an instinctive grasp of the Baroque rhetoric with the expressive breadth of the piano, revealing the ever-changing affects of these jewel-like works. (…) Sandrin brings to these performances all the pathos and lyricism of Baroque opera, making a fitting tribute to one of England’s greatest theatre composers”

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Cristian Sandrin’s Beethoven album featured on International Piano Magazine, May 2025

review by Peter J Rabinowitz

“There’s no denying his clarity: fingerwork is immaculate (passagework, trills and tremolos are unfailingly neat) and textures are lucid. (…)If you’re looking for performances that share Richard Goode’s logic and Mitsuko Uchida’s spirituality, you should find Sandrin’s immensely rewarding.”

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Thursday, 3rd April 2025: BBC Radio 3 “In Tune” programme

Cristian Sandrin in conversation with presenter Al Ryan on the “In Tune” primetime programme on BBC Radio 3. They discuss his newest all-Beethoven CD (Evil Penguin, 2025) as well as future projects, The New Goldberg Variations project and the upcoming CD devoted to Henri Purcell (Somm Recordings, 2025). Cristian performs live Beethoven’s Cavatina from String Quartet op. 130 arranged for the piano by Carl Tausig, Louise Drewett’s new variation on Bach’s Goldbergs and Prelude and Almand from Purcell’s Keyboard Suite in A minor.

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“Dances and mountains: Cristian Sandrin takes a new approach to the Goldberg Variations”

(Cristian Sandrin in conversation with Lawrence Dunn on his new project The New Goldberg Variations)

“Often the Goldbergs are described as a cathedral in sound. It was really amazing to see glasswork done by contemporary artists inside the cathedral. It didn’t diminish the cathedral’s historical value. Rather it made it more welcoming – more true to ourselves, kinder to our present selves. People often claim that contemporary music cannot be written as well as it was written during Bach’s time. That’s not true.”

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Cristian Sandrin Featured in Meet the Artist Interview

Meet the Artist, a blog series founded by Frances Wilson (The Cross-Eyed Pianist) that offers a behind-the-scenes look at the lives and creative journeys of musicians, conductors, and composers. In this insightful Q&A, loosely based on the Proust Questionnaire, Cristian discusses his musical influences, inspirations, the role of performance and repertoire in his artistic life, and much more. It's an exciting opportunity to offer a glimpse into what shapes Cristian’s artistry, both on and off the stage.

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Review in Piano News Deutschland: CD of the Months July and August 2023

Cristian’s CD “Correspondances” (2023) has been selected to be the Recording of the Month by Piano News Magazine in Germany.

 
A man playing a black piano with sheet music in a recording studio, with the Radio Romania Muzical logo in the top left corner.

Cristian Sandrin’s interview on Radio Romania Muzical on his upcoming album “Beethoven: Kavatina”

Cristian Sandrin in conversation with Cristina Comandasu, managing director of Radio Romania Muzical.