Bouchkov played with technical flawlessness and at the same time great empathy. His power and high precision were endless in the diverse requirements of the composition. It is precisely the endlessly meandering final movement that demands all the technical skill from the soloist, which Bouchkov realized with a very relaxed hand. The highlight was his wonderfully performed cantabile in the second movement, which he performed with deep feeling and a warm intonation.
The audience was enthusiastic and was thanked with an encore by Eugène Ysaÿe. Again, great approval from the auditorium.
Dirk Schauß, 17. Januar 2023, Online Merker, Internationales Kulturplattform
“Aram Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto in D minor was extremely well performed, with the approach of the Belgian soloist Marc Bouchkov, especially since the work, composed in 1940 and in its exuberance completely outdated the World War, is composed with enormous musical impetus, somnambulistic convincement as if written in a huge flow, virtuosic, constantly rattling in the fast outer movements, with a record number of notes. The violinist, who studied at Kronberg Academy among other places, played it sparklingly expressively […] in the big cadences with room-filling sound, often fat on the G string, as suggested by the Armenian composer. Bouchkov’s solo encore, a fantasia on two Ukrainian themes composed by himself with all the technical finesse in the style of Paganini.”
Guido Holze, 15. 01.23, FAZ.net