Matei Varga


“the greatest young Romanian pianist” before the public today, and the true heir of an incomparable pianistic tradition that includes Dinu Lipatti and Clara Haskil”

(Enescu Festival News, 2013)

Coming Up

  • Chatter North (Santa Fe, New Mexico)

    Saturday 22nd February 2025 at 10:00 AM


    Piano Recital with works by Mozart
    Info and tickets: https://www.chatterabq.org/

Selected Discography

  • MATEI VARGA PRESENTS

    THE YEAR THAT NEVER WAS

    • THE YEAR THAT NEVER WAS - Matei Varga

    • "Throughout one hour of music that straddles the salon with the “seriously” traditional, the extraordinary Matei Varga is welcomed back, playing idiomatically as to the manner born with a cool brain and a warm heart, letting the music of Lecuona and his predecessors resonate eloquently in a treasurable collection of music for the piano, assembled after months of isolation imposed on the artist and on all of us by unfortunate circumstances."
      Rafael de Acha ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

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Reviews

  • "Varga has a monster technique—check out his performance of Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude in C Minor, Op. 10, No.12—and all of his interpretations are fully idiomatic.."
    Read more »

    Andrew Quint, THE ABSOLUTE SOUND


  • "Varga has the ideally light and velvety touch and delicately suave phrasing to tease the maximum charm out of every piece."

    Stephen Wright, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE


  • "An eclectic, highly personal recording... Varga’s signature pianism is apt in arguing for seemingly disparate musical threads. More of a recital program than a thematically directed album, The Year That Never Was nonetheless achieves satisfaction, executed with much joy and a tasteful, rollicking fondness for this personalized set list."

    Adam Sherkin, THE WHOLE NOTE


  • "With his infectious enthusiasm and seemingly effortless technique, Varga makes light work of soaring leaps, cascading runs at breakneck speed and delightful trills, all with precise attention to detail.."
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    Lisa MacKinney, LIMELIGHT


  • "Throughout one hour of music that straddles the salon with the “seriously” traditional, the extraordinary Matei Varga is welcomed back, playing idiomatically as to the manner born with a cool brain and a warm heart, letting the music of Lecuona and his predecessors resonate eloquently in a treasurable collection of music for the piano, assembled after months of isolation imposed on the artist and on all of us by unfortunate circumstances."

    Rafael de Acha, ALL ABOUT THE ARTS


  • "Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu is given a splendidly glowering outing that anchors things with just the right amount of gravitas… This is meant to be music making to revive the mood and all I can say is: Mission accomplished! If the combined assault of war, inflation and a post Covid world are getting too much for you, I can enthusiastically prescribe a course of this joyous disc.”
    Read more »

    David McDade, MusicWeb-International


  • "Regardless of the composer in play, Varga elevates the set... with one ebullient and effervescent performance after another, his playing dazzling throughout and for Rondo alla Crazy and Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu Op. 66 in C-sharp minor virtuosic... Varga's range is such that he can shift from Tudor's high-spirited rondo to the tenderness of Balakirev's Spanish Melody in a flash... A stimulating and rapidly changing presentation."
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    textura.org


  • "... the Revolutionary Etude offered three minutes of intense drama. Beethoven’s immortal Für Elise, finely nuanced, was a surprising encore squeezed in between Gershwin and Lecuona... [Andrei] Tudor’s funny Rondo alla Crazy [will become] a future encore classic!"
    Read more »

    Göran Forsling, MUSICWEB-INTERNATIONAL