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This [new CD] features compositions by Joshua Fineberg and Hugues Dufourt and answers the question ‘Can one still write for the piano today?’ with a resounding yes.

” —’Pliable’

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Nonken’s performance is remarkable in that she seems so intimately attuned to Fineberg’s mode of discourse. The pianism [in the Dufourt work] is terrific: Nonken’s finger strength in the loud passages in particular is massively impressive. That said, she treats many of the quieter passages with an attention to texture and touch that one might more readily associate with a sensitive interpreter of the French Impressionists.

” —Colin Clarke

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Music of constantly morphing repetitions, often on a vast scale. Phrases, gestural blocks, and entire contours recur with the naturalness of an emergent spring or an oncoming snowstorm. There is not a pianist playing today who can bring more subtlety and energy to the music of Fineberg and Dufourt than does Marilyn Nonken. Her voicings are exquisite, her pedaling throughout is a model to be studied, and, when necessary, her virtuosity is equaled only by the insight and passion with which every piece is imbued. The recording is excellent, capturing every burst of light and color as it decays through every shade of sound and silence. This is an absolutely essential piano disc, a worthy addition to the library of anyone interested in recent piano explorations, rendered with vitality and intellectual rigor in perfect balance.

” —Marc Medwin

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Marilyn Nonken negotiates the immense technical and musical challenges of these works in remarkable fashion. This well recorded disc is self-recommending to readers who will know from this review whether they will be receptive to music of this sort. However self-recommending it may be, though, I recommend it too.

” —David DeBoor Canfield

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Nonken’s two-CD set of the complete solo piano music of Murail, also on the Métier label, is a spectacular introduction to this tantalizing world. At first glance, this highly abstract, very dissonant music seems extraordinarily challenging. But it is so purely expressive, honest and, not least, presented with such passion, that it should be intensely engaging for any music lover with an open mind. For me, this is yet another triumph for one of our greatest champions of living composers.

” —Peter Burwasser

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Marilyn Nonken is a persuasive advocate for spectral music … [she] has followed her outstanding 2CD set of Murail’s complete piano music with [this disc]. Dense, mercilessly virtuosic writing … Nonken handles the incremental tension superbly.

” —Graham Lock