Peter Donohoe and Martin Roscoe take to Rachmaninov like ducks to water. They luxuriate in his opulent keyboard idiom and even evoke the composer's own...

Peter Donohoe and Martin Roscoe take to Rachmaninov like ducks to water. They luxuriate in his opulent keyboard idiom and even evoke the composer's own titanic playing by way of thrust-inducing accents and booming bass notes that ring in your ear long after they're struck. Check out the ravishingly shaded first-movement trills and the finale's full-throated evocations of bells, and discover for yourself. The players admirably mirror Ax and Bronfman's sensible, dance-oriented tempos, even if they don't match the latter duo's finely honed textural clarity in the Symphonic Dances' middle movement or the Second Suite's Romance. By virtue of Donohoe and Roscoe's immense dynamic range and superbly sprung rhythms, the Second Suite's Waltz and Tarantella make an impact no less exhilarating and arguably more musically satisfying than the edge-of-seat bravura and breathless speeds Argerich and Rabinowitz favor. Naxos' sonics turn a little clangorous at the loudest moments, plus you occasionally hear intakes of breath and fingernails on the keys. Nevertheless, for a single-disc, bargain edition of Rachmaninov's major two-piano canon, you can't go wrong with this fine release.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com