Richard Strauss’ complete solo piano music dates from his teen years. His mature style, of course, loomed on the horizon, but the two groups of character pieces comprising Op. 3 and Op. 9, plus the B minor sonata already reveal an amazingly assured and fluent compositional technique. The music often sounds like Mendelssohn or Weber and has little real historical interest, if plenty of simple, modest entertainment value. Stefan Vladar plays it all to the hilt, and the slightly distant miking allows his luscious sonority to breathe. His robustness makes a striking foil to Glenn Gould’s more pinpointed, analytical deliberation in the Sonata and the Op. 3 pieces. Altogether, this is a worthy addition to Koch’s series devoted to “Richard Strauss the Unknown”.
