Disc 1 of Vanguard’s Mozart piano music collection is given over to a 1965 recital by Alfred Brendel. The luminous introspection and grace that distinguish the pianist’s most recent (2002) recording of the K. 310 sonata are worlds removed from his relatively tight-lipped, heel-clicking conception nearly 40 years earlier. Here he spits out the slow movement’s poignant repeated notes like a professor hitting the blackboard with a pointer, and the chains of ultra-precise trills rattle without a trace of soul. Oddly enough, Brendel’s similarly coiled rhythms and digital discipline give admirable weight, grandeur, and sustaining power to the C minor K. 396 Fantasia. The A minor Rondo is noticeably slower, more introspective, and less vocally informed than Brendel’s later Philips accounts. No qualms or qualifications, though, concern his delicately pointed and supple spin through the Duport Variations. Brendel may either irritate or inspire, but at least his artistry makes you think.
By contrast, you don’t have to work with Denis Matthews’ fluent, sensitive, and tasteful Mozart playing. His accounts of the B-flat K. 333 and the big C minor Fantasy/Sonata K. 457/475 keep within restricted dynamic parameters, are executed with consummate ease, and offer no points of controversy nor confrontation. Lili Kraus displays a higher degree of musical tension and inner drama in the D minor K. 397 Fantasia–more so, in fact, than in her mono Haydn Society recording (reissued on Music and Arts). In all, this is a mixed bag with some memorable moments.
