Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas contain more than enough musical substance to make a satisfying programme just as as they are. But Steven Osborne added one tweak to that standard sequence, prefacing each of the sonatas with one of the intermezzos from Brahms’s Op 117 set, reversing the order of those jewel-like pieces so that the third intermezzo, in C sharp minor, came before Beethoven’s Op 109, the B flat minor second preceded Op 110, and the lullaby-like first in E flat was a prelude to the thunderous opening of Op 111.
The Brahms certainly provided moments of cool reflection and contrast, though each was a fresh, seriously considered performance in its own right. But then everything in the recital conveyed the sense of thoughtfulness, without ever seeming precious or contrived. Sections of Op 109 were straightforward to the point of bluntness, alongside others spun from the most refined threads of sound. Even when ideas didn’t quite work – Osborne’s tempo for the central section of Op 110’s scherzo was a bit too reckless, for instance – they were almost always framed by others that were wonderfully successful, whether it was the simple eloquence of the roving left-hand line in the first-movement development of the same sonata, or the unfussy unfolding of the fugues in its finale.
Some of Osborne’s playing was unflinchingly powerful – the close of Op 110 was shattering, the climaxes of Op 111’s set of variations ecstatically intense. But unlike Igor Levit’s late Beethoven in the same hall four nights earlier, nothing was done just for effect; this was a pianist to responding to some of the greatest piano music ever written as honestly as he could.
- On BBC iPlayer until 21 April, and repeated at Perth Concert Hall on 26 March. Box office: 01738 621 031.
