The New York Times

I don’t have a personality that pushes me towards extravagance”, the French pianist Philippe Bianconi says in the liner notes for this new album.
Well then he’s playing the right composer. As with Chopin and Debussy, there’s something magical, even transfiguring, in Ravel’s writing for piano, but he did it in its own exquisitely crafted way. Hies pieces admit impressionistic effects, without drowning in them; the fountain splashes of “Jeux d’eau” become liquid glitter in Bianconi’s hands. The lonesome images of “Miroirs”, the ferocity of “Gaspard de la Nuit”, the slender waltzes of “Valses Nobles et Sentimentales”, the fairy-tale lucidity of “Ma Mère l’Oye” (with the pianist Clément Lefebvre” – these all invite expressivity and recoil at schmaltz, and Bianconi stylishly obliges.
Bianconi, who traces his pedagogical lineage back to Ravel’s circle, compels the listener to share his focus. He constructs hard, polished surfaces with glimmers of solitude, such as in “Une Barque sur l’Océan” and Sonatine. The shimmer of rapid oscillations gets a pointillistic crispness. If you want runs that sound like Champagne bubbles, look elsewhere like Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Even when forced to play Twister with his fingers, Bianconi gently articulates the voicings – the chilly tolling of bells in “Le Gibet” or the airily seductive siren song of “Ondine”. For him, elegant restraint means committing to specific choices. Call it radical clarity.

The New York Times, September 29, 2023 – Oussama Zahr