Some two thirds of his [Smetana’s] output is for the piano, and there are some extraordinarily challenging works, both musically and technically, many of which are to be found in this wonderful selection of pieces performed here by Kathryn Stott… It would be wonderful if Stott might follow up the success of this disc with one devoted to these most engaging of Smetana’s keyboard works [Polkas] and the dance form with which he is most associated. For all the Lisztian qualities of much of Smetana’s piano works, it is here that he seems most at home. Jan Smaczny’s programme notes are first-rate.
International Record Review
Stott shows how much Smetana owed to Liszt. The Hungarian’s shadow lies over other works on the Chandos disc, the splendid Concert Study in C and transcription of Schubert’s Der Neugierge not least. Another pearl in Stott’s programme is the knockabout Fantasy on national songs.
Gramophone
This Chandos release is entitled Dreams, after the major work on the disc, and there are Czech folk dances and a Fantasia on Czech folk songs as well as other shorter pieces. Smetana doesn’t always sound Czech in his music, and this is so in the six-part Dreams. Neither is his keyboard work as well-known as it deserves to be, but Kathy Stott gives as a fine realisation of this music as we could wish for, making a very worthwhile recital.
Liverpool Daily Post
Stott also overtly emphasises Smetana’s debt to Chopin in her playing, which is wonderfully reflective and subtle, above all in Dreams, and in the exquisite On the Sea Shore, written in 1861, shortly after Smetana’s return to Prague from Sweden.
The Guardian
Stott’s approach is more measured, and more poetic. In her hands , the showers of notes garlanding the melody in On the Seashore have irresistible beauty, while the Czech dance entitled ‘Hulan’ (‘Lancer’) has an extraordinary tenerdness. These pianists have open up a treasure trove…
BBC Music Magazine