As pianist for the Borodin Trio, Luba Edlina has long distinguished herself as a cultivated musician and a team player who is unfailingly attuned to her colleagues. I’m not sure, however, that solo playing is what she does best. To be sure, Edlina’s intimate approach to Schubert’s D. 790 Ländler, the Hüttenbrenner Variations, and sundry short pieces is characterized by stylish intelligence and a limpid, warm sonority that suits this repertoire to perfection. Yet the little ritards sprinkled throughout the Ländler grow more predictable with each successive movement. More assertive dynamics and stronger rhythmic profile are needed to better illustrate the music’s fragile diversity and dance-like character. The Three Impromptus D. 946 fare best in lyrical moments but cry out for a more ardent, propulsive interpreter. Edlina’s soft-grained phrasing in the C major piece, to cite one instance, plays down Schubert’s delicious phrase displacements against the meter, rather than bringing them out as Wilhelm Kempff does in his recently released BBC Legends recital. In a nutshell, Edlina’s Schubert is like comfort food: bland but pleasant, unmemorable but satisfying.
