Valerie Tryon, pianist

Tryon's art is one of proportion and taste, deriving its strength from understatement. Her extensive technical resources are used with enormous restraint in a style which, clearly by choice, avoids both brilliance and flamboyance. She possesses virtuosic control, particularly over the lower end of the dynamic scale. Her ability to play passages of intricate fingerwork with lightness and rapidity is truly magical. She never strains - even the most fiendish sections seem simple in her hands.

Tryon’s Liszt made it clear that we had entered the 19th century and were communing with one of that period’s seminal geniuses. Although it was the same instrument she was playing, the Yamaha piano sounded entirely different…. Finally, there was the “Mephisto Waltz” with its diabolical energy and seductive lyricism. Tryon just let it rip, emerging cool and undaunted after wrestling with the devil.

Everything is direct, backed by a dream technique...Tryon impresses me as the best pianist so far in the ongoing Naxos cycle of the complete Piano Music of Franz Liszt.

Valerie Tryon...is a Liszt specialist, but a virtuoso with a brain, and in the Chopin Ballades she takes the hardest route of all: she plays close to the score with as little license as possible...Since the Fourth Ballade has more variety, more sections of different character than the preceding three Ballades, the performer has more decisions to make about changes of gear...Tryon probably has a better feeling than anyone for these "changes of gear" so that the narrative is articulated as powerfully as it can be, and she goes for the final section like a bat out of hell.