...There is not any problem with the technique: accuracy of lines and plans,power of the chord mass,saturated sounding in spite of imperfect instrument,in other words - it is a real piano music.

And no any false note!

On this are based the concentration,music talent,expression and the sense of performing skill,which never,simply never get lost.The presence of the musician can be highly felt at any moment: listening to the transparent Haydn, Berg...in Scriabin's works,almost perfected by her play.

Piano evening with Ekaterina Derzhavina of "Masters' Chamber Music" program became an hour of triumph for piano music in overcrowded Busch brothers' theatre in Dahlbruch.The pianist was constantly discovering new ways of thinking and aspects literally overwhelming the spirit by invading voice installations or polyphonic articulations.With the help fabulously controlling technique there comes the result, excitingly phantasmal and musical... (Bach,Goldberg-variations)

Ekaterina Derzhavina's name was new to me, but this 9-CD set of Haydn's complete piano sonatas should broaden her recognition considerably. Her playing is elegant, stylish, and above all imaginative, showing just how creative the composer was ...her feel for Haydn's originality comes through brilliantly

...In some incomprehensible manner she manages to perform a big Schubert's Sonata as though it is some original detetctive story, and even unprepared listeners hold their breath. Ekaterina Derzhavina does not use any superficial effects, which are so popular among young performers, but she gives the SPIRIT to works she plays. That is why her recital in Saratov became a real celebration of musical thought.

Performing Haydn she is as though speaks her own language,treating the time easily, bringing her own ornaments (in baroque style) into repeating episodes, including unexpected silences, elements of rubato.This is a living, cheerful and often humorous world. But sometimes it is wistfully profound. And one starts to believe that it is the real great music imitating neither Mozart's achievements nor Bach's discoveries...