Adam Laloum
has offered low-key
Schubert
in the past, and it has gone against the current grain of finding big Beethovenian drama in
. Here, in the
Piano Sonata in A major, D. 959
, he shifts gears a bit. His first movement involves flexible tempos and a good deal of general instability. Then he settles down, resulting in a first-movement-heavy treatment of the sonata. It is unusual and probably fulfills the goal of standing out from the large crowd of recordings of this late
work. Perhaps stronger are the six
Moments Musicaux
, where
Laloum
's perfect control results in crystalline miniatures that truly entrance the listener if external thoughts are set aside. Sample the
Allegro, D. 780, No. 3
, a perfect miniature.
Harmonia Mundi
finds idiomatic sound at the Théâtre Auditorium de Poitiers but mikes
too closely, picking up a good deal of non-musical noise.
is perhaps a pianist who excels in music of small dimensions, a valuable thing in a field where heroics are usually what is valued, and he produces an excellent example here. ~ James Manheim