Stefan Vladar’s crisply delineated, slightly dry yet superbly poised and characterful Haydn interpretations simply delight. His urgent, impetuous phrasing in the C major sonata’s finale may well hold more appeal than Marc-André Hamelin’s cooler delivery. If Vladar’s trills in the F minor Variations don’t match Hamelin’s shimmering evenness, he offers Alfred Brendel’s sense of nuance and melodic inflection in more headlong, less rhetorical terms. Vladar fashions a genuine dialogue out of the right-hand cantilenas and left-hand arpeggios in the slow movement of Sonata No. 38, as well as in the finale’s understated yet witty linear interplay. Lastly, Vladar’s lean, incisive playing throughout the great E-flat sonata’s outer movements, together with his perfectly timed silences, more than holds its own with the catalog’s best versions. In all, a most enjoyable disc, highly recommended. [9/10/2010]
