For the most part, Klara Würtz’s intelligence, technical finesse, and innate musicality serve the Schubert Impromptus well. In the C minor she plays down the dramatic intensity that Schnabel incomparably unraveled, yet sustains the music’s narrative momentum through subtle alterations of balances between hands. A playful, lilting quality transpires throughout the E-flat, highlighted by stinging dissonant accents in the minor-key section. Although I’d like more urgency in the bass trills than Würtz delivers, her relaxed alla breve tempo and excellently delineated textures more than compensate in the beloved G-flat piece. She also keeps the D. 899’s final selection afloat by virtue of a brisk tempo and attractive variations of touch in the descending right-hand arpeggios, while her impulsive yet natural-sounding tempo modifications give life and red-blooded shape to D. 935’s opening F minor Impromptu.
The following A-flat piece features a faster, more urgently phrased minor-key middle section than usual, and it’s quite convincing. Given her general excellence elsewhere, I was slightly let down by Würtz’s relatively plain and foursquare way with the B-flat Theme and Variations (I’m forever spoiled by the 82-year-old Vladimir Horowitz’s marvelously crisp and imaginative DG account), but the pianist makes up for it in the concluding F minor with her snappy rhythm and fabulous articulation of ornaments. Overall, a fine disc.
