Flensburger Tageblatt (Germany), August 1998

"Without the superficial virtuosity or the flood of chords that are often found in the performances of most Japanese pianists, she brought bold passages back to life beyond her technical skills as a pianist to convey the structure and content of the music to the audience through her understanding."

Music magazine "Musica Nova" (Japan), 2002

"Rutsuko Yamagishi is a fascinating pianist. Her musical structure is quite masculine and laid-back. Her fertile imagination and amazing virtuosity give life to the pieces she plays. She maintains a superb balance between intelligence and imagination with carefully calculated details. Stravinsky's "Petrushka" played at the end of the program on that day was particularly marvelous. She rendered the hustle and bustle of a festival and its excitement with her decisive and imaginative pianism. Her performance was sharp and met everything required. It was a masterful performance."

" Musica Nova" (Japan), March issue, 2008

"Her centripetal force is exceptional. The audience will be engulfed in the world of her music, softly and instantly. Her interpretation made me feel as if I was listening to the masterful performance of a violin soloist. The musical structure she creates is quite orthodox. In addition to well-balanced sound and linguistic sensitivity, she has the ability to control her performance to directly express what she feels�c Her "La Campanella" by Franz Liszt is simply excellent. It is a musical feast far beyond her technique. One cannot easily find such a great performance."

Reiko Kishimoto (commentator)

"In recent years, Rutsuko Yamagishi's performances have obtained the flavor of Russian Romanticism to a great extent, in the same way those of her master, Lazar Berman, did. Such flavor attracted a large audience at her Hakuju Hall recital held on November 18, 2007. The latter half of the recital began with "Variations on a Theme of Corelli" by Rachmaninoff. After the echo of the last note of coda vanished and the venue was covered with a moment of silence, thunderous applause broke out all at once. This brought me to a reverie: Franz Liszt, whose works were included in the program that night, might have given a performance like this and sent the audience into frenzy; Sergei Rachmaninoff's transcendental technique, which stunned American audiences, might have been like this. The name of Rutsuko Yamagishi's master gives us a hint. Lazar Berman studied at the Moscow Conservatory under the famous professor Alexander Goldenweiser. Goldenweiser studied at the Conservatory under Professor Alexander Siloti, together with his classmate Rachmaninoff. Siloti, who advised his much younger cousin Rachmaninoff to study at the Moscow Conservatory, was one of the most famous students of Liszt in his later years, as well as being a leading figure in the musical world in Russia in the early 20th century. In summary, Lazar Berman is descended from the authentic genealogy comprised of Liszt and Rachmaninoff. Therefore Rutsuko Yamagishi, Berman's only student in his last years, is the last direct descendant of this genealogy. I witnessed numerous sighs and applause at the venue of her recital. In spite of the overwhelming auditory information that the audience received, some of them received a visual image of a painting while listening to her performance, while others got goose bumps that were almost painful. There was also somebody who sensed a rich and mellow scent through her performance. The genetic characteristics of the musicians in this genealogy are enthusiasm, ecstasy and a fiery appeal to the five senses. Rutsuko Yamagishi certainly inherits such characteristics." On Yamagishi's recital held at the Hakuju Hall (Tokyo) in November 2007

Dr. Vadim Monastirsky
(prize winner of Liszt International piano comptetition, professor of Jerusalem Academy of Music(Israel))

Dr. Vladmir Mischuk
(Silver medal of International Tchaikovsky Competition, Professor of St. Petersburg Conservatory(Russia))

Marc Durand
(Professor of the University of Montreal and Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto,Canada. )

Dr.Marcella Crodelli
( President of association "F.Chopi", Professor of Rome and Paris Conservatories.)