Sonates pour piano

Description

How swift it is! Steven Osborne launches into "his" Hammerklavier with the athletic finesse of a thoroughbred, those muscles, that fervor, and yet a control of sound that calibrates everything. This is a bit of what I sense here as a slight but certain drawback. If one has the means - and Osborne does - to produce the astonishment that Beethoven intended to impose in the first page of the Hammerklavier, then one must strike with lightning. The momentum is formidable, but it precisely lacks that thunderbolt that Schnabel knew how to produce, even if it meant leaving some notes under the keyboard. And there is no doubt that, deep down, Schnabel was Osborne's model here. But let’s not quibble, Osborne unifies this improbable, fanciful, delirious dreamlike construction that is the Hammerklavier to its greatest benefit: he plays it prestissimo (the Fugue!), giving it a lift where the (too?) beautiful sound always reigns. What a pianist, what means! Opus 101, which begins as a somewhat capricious confession, in a bagatelle tone, immediately catches the ear. But quickly, the urgency is lacking, the fingers get lost in the details, it meanders and continues to wander in a Vivace that is very little alla marcia. It is beautiful from start to finish, but never exhilarating. Even more challenging, the brief Sonata op. 90, with its troubadour airs and disconcerting questions. Osborne finds the colors for the first movement, but the Rondeau then slips through his fingers, pretty, univocal, asleep in a smoothed tempo that keeps falling asleep. Beethoven is difficult… (Discophilia - Artalinna.com). (Jean-Charles Hoffelé)