Instrumental

Beethoven’s sonatas explore a musical world so wide-ranging that not even a pianist of Boris Giltburg’s quality will excel when exploring every corner of it. Given that the seventh instalment of this complete cycle takes in two major masterworks – the Appassionata, Op. 57 and Les adieux, Op. 81a – plus two smaller and very different ones in Op. 78 in F sharp major and Op. 79 in G major, what impresses is the comprehensive success-rate of Giltburg’s approach, rather than the odd reservation here or there.

The Appassionata’s F minor opening instantly focuses attention, and the sweep and drama of Giltburg’s journey through its darkly turbulent outer movements never lets up for a moment; but perhaps the wonderful burnished colours of the central Andante con moto are kept on slightly too tight a rein for them to sing? And while Les adieux is delivered with superb panache, the finale’s sequence of little hesitations before the joyful ending feel as if they’re over-thought.

The two shorter works receive near-ideal interpretations. As Giltburg rightly insists in his booklet note, while the scope of Op. 78’s two-movement design seems modest, this is a disproportionately memorable creation: he beautifully conveys the luminous calm of its F sharp major tonality (a quality later much taken up by Liszt). And the sparkle of Op. 79’s outer movements is.