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  02 Mar 16 Daniel Lebhardt Shows Daring Command in a New York Debut New York Times
  Merkin Concert Hall

  “Even before the 23-year-old Hungarian pianist Daniel Lebhardt began his New York debut recital on Tuesday night, I was impressed by the adventurous program he had chosen. For this performance at Merkin Concert Hall, Mr. Lebhardt, a winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, played an overlooked Beethoven sonata, followed by the premiere of a substantive piece by Tonia Ko, ending with a cornerstone of the repertory (by a fellow Hungarian): Liszt’s daunting Sonata in B minor.
  It took imagination to open with Beethoven’s Sonata No. 16 in G (Op. 31, No. 1). […]The opening Allegro unfolds in bursts of spiraling runs and scale fragments punctuated by chords that are slightly, and deliberately, out of sync. Taking a daringly fast tempo, Mr. Lebhardt dispatched the music with scintillating crispness and conveyed its brash humor. But the breathless energy of his account also teased out the sonata’s heedless daring. He revealed the slyness at work in the Adagio, with its almost mock-elegant trills and swirling passagework. The final Rondo was an impish, brilliant delight. […] Liszt’s visionary Sonata in B minor is an epic fantasy lasting nearly 30 minutes, shifting from bursts of wildness to passages of profundity. Just playing it commandingly, as Mr. Lebhardt did, is difficult enough. He brought narrative sweep and youthful abandon to the piece, along with power, poetry and formidable technique…”

  Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 2 March 2016

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  06 Nov 17 The Audience Roared their Approval Nottingham Post
  Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham

  “Daniel Lebhardt was a hit with Sunday morning’s RCH audience – and not just because he is a brilliant, multi-prize-winning pianist. He’s also a very endearing personality, young (still only 25) and able to chat informatively to his listeners about the music, even getting his phone out to find helpful quotations.
  His programme was both meaty and well-balanced, starting with Schubert’s Three Piano Pieces , immediately showing how well he could create sharply contrasting moods. The first piece started darkly and turbulently but then blossomed into a lyrically expansive show section. The final piece offered him similar opportunities to perform a quick change from the breathless urgency of the opening to a central section almost hymn-like in texture and atmosphere.
  Daniel’s introduction to Mozart’s Rondo in A minor helped open ears and minds to this unusually sad piece […] Daniel certainly captured the Rondo ‘s yearning and melancholy, its feeling of unease and of resignation to fate.
  Then came Rachmaninov’s 2nd Sonata , in the original, longer and more difficult 1913 version. Daniel Lebhardt rose to its fearsome technical challenges giving the work both a propulsive dramatic sweep and lots of soulful lyricism. The result was intensely exciting, imaginative and full of colour.
  He made the piano sing in the slow movement and roar in the supercharged finale. If Rachmaninov had heard such a performance of the 1913 version, maybe he wouldn’t have felt the need to rewrite it in 1931.
  The audience roared their approval, no doubt hoped for an encore, but seemed to know that they had already had more than their share of musical fireworks for one November the Fifth.”

  William Ruff, Nottingham Post, 6 November 2017

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  07 Dec 17 An Extraordinarily Talented Pianist West Sussex Gazette
  Chichester Chamber Concerts

  “From the opening chord of Beethoven’s ‘Tempest’ Sonata, it was clear we were in the hands of a magician. […] Hungarian pianist Daniel Lebhardt transported us Prospero-like to a magic “isle full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs that give delight”. His calm concentration focussed our attention on the music: its fierce contrasts of tempestuous outbursts stilled by those magic chords, and the curiously inward-looking recitative holding our thoughts before plunging into the recapitulation. It was all masterfully done. […] But all this magic was just the curtain-raiser for the next item which for me was the star of the show: Bartók’s Piano Sonata. What energy, what wild rhythms! Lebhardt played as if possessed – completely winning over any of the audience who might have been timid about Bartók by his sheer love of this wonderful Hungarian music. The final devilish dance whirled faster and faster to the end and our enthusiastic cheers. I could not imagine a better performance […] Rachmaninov is rich fare and Lebhardt played this passionate and complex music with extraordinary technical prowess and a powerfully concentrated conviction. Daniel Lebhardt is an extraordinarily talented pianist. Well done Chichester for giving him a platform; watch out for him in the future…”

  Chris Darwin, West Sussex Gazette, 7 December 2017