"For a true and haunting sense of romance beneath Ravel's inscrutable surface, Gordon Fergus-Thompson is your man. Even the most experienced Ravelians will find themselves returning to these finely recorded accounts for a special and magical enlightenment."
Bryce Morrison, Gramophone


Debussy Preludes"I have never heard a recorded version that approaches these performances in terms of musical insight and sheer atmosphere. Fergus-Thompson's range of tone colour, and control of dynamic and texture are nothing short of transcendental, and his inspired use of the sustaining pedal is really something to marvel at."
Julian Haylock, CD Review


"Gordon Fergus-Thompson is one of the great keyboard colourists. No matter how complex the music in hand, he possesses the rare ability to characterise each individual strand with its own special weight and timbre. Recordings for Kingdom of sonatas by Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Balakirev, and for ASV of the complete works of Debussy and Ravel - alongside Rachmaninoff's Etudes-Tableaux and a delectable collection of Bach transcriptions - combine a passionate intensity with a sense of colour and textural control that are altogether exemplary."
International Piano Magazine


"For sheer beauty and variety of tone, poignancy of effect, grandeur of conception and multi-hued orchestral splendour, Gordon Fergus-Thompson's complete cycle on ASV is unlikely ever to be surpassed. The quality of the playing is complemented by excellent recording, perfectly suited to the artist's very personal approach. Fergus-Thompson takes an unabashedly Romantic and Impressionistic view. The control of sound is masterly from start to finish, the pedalling often unearthly in its haunting evanescence and tonal lighting, the timing impeccably suited to the pianist's overall conception. This set contains, for this listener, an abundance not only of very good but of truly great piano-playing. I know of no warmer, more comprehensive or more richly satisfying Ravel-playing than this."
Piano Magazine


Pianist's Panache "Tchaikovsky wrote the Fantasia with a particularly brilliant pianist in mind -Eugen d'Albert- and it is a work that needs just the sort of bravura which Gordon Fergus-Thompson brought to it in the third of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Barbican Tchaikovsky-Rachmaninoff concerts. The Fantasia may not be the piece for which Tchaikovsky might like to be remembered but Mr. Fergus-Thompson gave it with Lisztian panache and with a vigorous, uninhibited flair and thrust."
Daily Telegraph


The Keyboard VirtuosoBryce Morrison welcomes the return of joie de vivre"Cherkassky, Bolet and Horowitz are among modern if throw-back champions of this cause, but Gordon Fergus-Thompson enters the field with the most engaging relish, sparkle and technical assurance. Such freedom and imaginative daring are unusual in a generation nurtured on ruthless and often pseudo-scientific notions of accuracy and taste, and Mr. Fergus-Thompson's special pleading in, say, the Glinka-Balakirev the intensity and rhetorical force with which he throws off the music's conversational brio and Lisztian roulades, is breathtaking. Once more, in all three Godowsky arrangements Mr. Fergus-Thompson realises, like all true virtuosi, that such music is always just that bit larger than life and throughout his witty and daunting recital he vividly recreates, by sheer style and agility, a bygone age when beauty and exuberance were inseparable."


"BUDE Music Society enjoyed one of the most exciting and impressive piano recitals to have been heard in the West Country at its concert on Thursday at Budehaven Community School. The Pianist was Gordon Fergus-Thompson, an internationally established recitalist and concerto player. Gordon presented, in his approach to his audience, a charmingly modest, unassuming manner but his playing revealed a spectacular virtuosity that combined both power and sensitivity. He was received with rapturous applause by a delighted audience."
Bude and Stratton Post


Gordon Fergus-ThompsonTrinity Church, Golders Green"The piano recital that opened the 41st season of the Hendon Music Society on Saturday night was a magisterial affair, a programme played with assurance and bravura by Gordon Fergus-Thompson that fell neatly into two halves."
H&H SERIES


Master pianist shows insightCape Town Concert Series, Baxter "Gordon Fergus-Thompson is a master pianist of considerable renown who combines technical virtuosity with artistic insight. Throughout this remarkable recital, one was struck by his pianistic touch and clarity of sound and thought."
CAPE TIMES


Debussy: The Complete Piano Music"Fergus-Thompson had a total command of keyboard colours in his wide dynamic range, capturing the veiled quality of the impressionistic scores while retaining the utmost clarity. His account of Images was full of evocative scene painting., while the Preludes displayed a wonderfully poetic feeling. Musical fireworks were dispatched with dazzling brilliance, his dexterity thrilling in the mercurial pieces."
The Yorkshire Post


Eloquent emotions BBC SO / Barbican Hall / Radio 3
Tchaikovsky: Concert Fantasy Op.56
"If anything can bring it back to favour, it ought to be the fervent virtuosity that Gordon Fergus-Thompson's playing bestowed on it. The degree of orchestral seniority it demands for the keyboard puts it among the major concertos, and the effect was often exhilarating. The long, rhapsodic first-movement solo was splendidly judged, and balanced by the degree of emotional intensity in the contrasts of the following movement."
THE TIMES


Salisbury FestivalSt. Thomas's Church"Gordon Fergus-Thompson's specialisation in Russian music was well demonstrated in the second half, with some very welcome Scriabin. Considered, controlled, sonorous readings of the first of the Opus 32 poems, and of the similarly textured Study Opus 42 No.4, were curtain-raisers for the late, almost atonal "Vers la flamme", which develops from a melodic cell into then virtually untried pianistic regions. It was played with technical brilliance and a consuming intensity which lingers in the memory. As if this were not enough, it was followed by the glittering ferocity of the piano version of Stravinsky's Firebird Danse Infernale, breathtakingly realised."
Salisbury Journal


"High-powered virtuosity is also very much at the heart of Gordon Fergus-Thompson's temperament and repertoire. And at the Wigmore Hall on December 5 he whirled us through the Bach-Busoni Chaconne with immense verve. Chopin's F minor and E flat Nocturnes, opus 55 were also given with a fierce integrity, shorn of all easy sentimentality and there was an exhausting run of Scriabin and Rachmaninov admirably suited to such an ardent and magisterial approach."
Bryce Morrison


Rachmaninov: Sonata 1 in D minor Op.28, Sonata 2 in B flat minorKingdom KCL CD 2007"Gordon Fergus-Thompson ventures onto truly formidable ground for his second Kingdom disc. The recordings are of demonstration quality, of a superlative depth and clarity, and allow one to savour to the full performances of a heartfelt brio and intensity. Gordon Fergus-Thompson is a most imperious artist, technically impregnable and happy to project his ideas with a lavish sense of colour and nuance. A luxuriant stylist, he is also a totally serious artist."
Bryce Morrison


Gordon Fergus-ThompsonThe Barber Institute, University of Birmingham "The concert exhibited pianism of the highest artistic order such as we have come to expect of this performer who seems to relish every exploration he makes on the piano of the music he carefully chooses to play."
Birmingham Post


Scriabin: Preludes (complete)Gordon Fergus-Thompson (piano) ASV CDDCA 1096"Few composers have inspired so wide a range of interpretative responses as Alexander Scriabin. From Gavrilov's super-heated, high adrenaline propulsion, to Richter's magisterial indomitability; from Horowitz's incandescent, multi-layered exultation, to Szidon's clear-headed textural illumination; from Pletnev's coruscating pointillism, to Hamelin's technical and structural invulnerability. Fergus-Thompson brings fresh revelations, seducing the listener (particularly at low dynamic levels) with a heady palette of tonal colours and micro-pedallings that are a source of wonder in themselves. Add to that an almost unrivalled ability to encapsulate Scriabin's microcosmic soundworlds so they sound neither short-winded nor compressed, and this is clearly a very special recital. One of the most impressive aspects of Fergus-Thompson's artistry is its profound sense of stylistic context. His poetically charged responses, skin-tingling rubato and velvet touch - the first of the Op.31 Preludes is unforgettable in this respect - are not so much specifically Chopinesque as suggestive of a spiritual kinship with miniatures as contrasted as those by Grieg, Brahms and Schumann. Where some players appear intent on making such as the Op.59 No.2 Prelude sound like a renegade from Schoenberg's Op.11 Pieces, Fergus-Thompson's rich-textured, incalculably subtle and supple response, ensures that the listener is cocooned in a sensually aromatic web of sound. If you want to be hit metaphorically over the head with a stick marked "Modernism", then Fergus-Thompson is clearly not your man. But for those who wish to savour Scriabin's often bewildering changeability without having their emotions torn to shreds, Fergus-Thompson is uniquely spellbinding in this repertoire. There are excellent annotations by piano guru Bryce Morrison, and unimpeachable production values courtesy of Alexander Waugh."
Simon Hodges, International Piano