Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman’s carefully thought out and well regulated ensemble work in Brahms’ F minor sonata often appears to echo the string sonorities of the composer’s piano quintet scoring for the same music. You notice this in regard to the slow movement’s melting legato lines, repeated notes in the first and third movements that sound bowed rather than clipped, and a driving momentum in the finale spearheaded by resonant, decisive bass lines. The performance may not match the wide dynamic range and febrile intensity of Argerich/Zilberstein on EMI, but its virtues wear well over repeated hearings.
The Haydn Variations generally would have benefited from leaner textures, slightly faster tempos, and more conversational interplay between instruments (save for a spaciously lilting No. 7). In the passacaglia finale the pianists modify their basic tempo by slowing down for the central triplet sequences, then slightly trivialize the grandeur implied by Brahms’ return to the major mode when they whip up the tempo. For these reasons I prefer the suppler and more incisive Perahia/Solti recording (also on Sony) while hoping that the label finally will reissue on CD Gold and Fizdale’s classic version from the early-’60s.
