“THE POETRY AND GRANDEUR OF SHURA CHERKASSKY
By HAROLD C.  SCHONBERG
The New York Times (segment)
1 March, 1987

As a pupil of Hofmann’s - and, incidentally, the only Hofmann pupil who still has an important career -he naturally has certain things in common with his master. His technical proficiency is, of course, taken for granted. What he got from Hofmann was the ability to project a singing tone, the ability, common to Romantic pianists but now almost a lost art, to move the basses and to search out meaningful inner voices; and the trick of constant fluctuation of tempo without ever losing the basic meter.
Mr. Cherkassky is thus one of the remaining handful of musicians who reflect the Romantic style. In a day when interpretations are highly standardized, he goes along in his own highly idiosyncratic, personal manner. It is a style that is poetic, can rise to authentic grandeur, can convey the emotional content of the music without neglecting its structure, and can make the younger generation’s playing sound like pebbles rattling in a tin can.”