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Third time luckier for Oppitz and Brautigam ups the ante.
As with Vols 1 and 2, the third instalment of Gerhard Oppitz’s Beethoven cycle waxes persuasive and diffident, often within a single work. The big E flat Sonata, Op 7, captures the pianist’s head and heart, from the first movement’s presence and power to a flexible, tellingly delineated finale. I also warm to Oppitz’s sustained reserve in the slow movement, where he carefully gauges the climaxes. The Allegro third movement’s outer sections are rounded off to a fault, in contrast to the Trio’s firm, forward-moving triplets.
One might prefer a leaner, more tersely organised Op 14 No 1 than Oppitz’s ripe and rhetorical interpretation. Though he swoons around the first movement, his crisp, marchlike middle movement and biting, superbly timed third-movement runs and silences are right on the money. He brings incisive fingerwork and bubbling wit to the sonata’s finale, whereas that of Op 49 No 2 is heavy and dour. Hännsler’s engineering improves over Vol 2’s hollow-sounding, distant pick-up, but more warmth, detail and dynamic range would have been welcome still.
Ronald Brautigam employs more liberal modifications of pulse in Op 7’s opening, followed by a mesmerising slow movement full of inner drama and concentration from note to note. Brautigam’s more fluid, forward-moving phrasing in the last two movements makes Oppitz sound relatively earthbound. Nor does Brautigam treat the relatively slighter Op 10 Nos 1 and 2 sonatas on a small scale. You’ll notice how he manages to characterise and contrast first-movement second themes without labouring the obvious, while maintaining linear clarity in the rollicking finales.
The same goes for Op 10 No 3’s first movement, which Brautigam paces far more moderately than Beethoven’s Presto implies. By contrast, the slow movement moves quicker than usual, yet here the fortepiano’s potential for tone colour and varied articulations really comes into its own. Not only does Brautigam rightly feel the Minuet as one beat to a bar but he also emphasises the left-hand counterlines more effectively than others. He underscores the Rondo’s harmonic surprises, judges the silences to perfection and makes something slightly different out of each main-theme repetition.
In short, these absorbing, freshly considered Beethoven interpretations deserve serious consideration. BIS’s gorgeous engineering (equally fine in stereo or surround sound) and unusually generous playing time sweeten the ante.
Jed Distler (Published by Gramophone Magazine - October 2006)
Rating:  [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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