Llŷr Williams’s penetrating Brahms collection explores the pivotal F minor Sonata (1853) and swansong cycles Opp 116‑119 (1892‑93), interleaved with the Albumblatt Variations after Schumann, Op 9, and the D minor Theme and Variations transcription from the Op 18 String Sextet. Without exaggeration, he probes deep, his pianism poetic. The Sonata sets the bar high, precision fingerwork and reserved pedalling ensuring optimum clarity of texture, ‘orchestral’ allusion and harmony. Architecturally cohesive, the underlying maestoso/moderato current and thematic/motivic debate is emphasised without pedantry. Sokolov (Paris, 1993, live) gives you ‘huge paws and eager jaws’ (Jed Distler). Curzon (Vienna, 1962) carries the music ‘on the breath … projecting it without raising his voice’ (Stephen Plaistow). In a competitive arena, Williams, more a Curzon than a fire-and-brimstone man, holds his own.

Resisting spurious interventions or indulgences, investing Brahms’s linearities intuitively, pays dividends in the late works. There’s a simple truth about the fifth and sixth pieces of Op 118 that’s affecting. Williams’s predilection, for the better, is not to hurry. The E flat Intermezzo opening the Op 117 trilogy speaks ‘music to soothe all humanity’. The G minor Capriccio, Op 116 No 3, blooms; its D minor counterpart, No 7, canters. Op 119 combines burgeoning athleticism with lyric intimacies and phrased farewells (wonderfully so in the second number), the closing E flat Rhapsody pictured through sweeping sunshine-and-mist vistas. The evolvingly organic Variations on a Theme by Schumann finds Williams intent on characterisation, connection, voicing, bass lines and beauty of touch. Mike Hatch’s engineering does the project justice.

This review originally featured in the SPRING 2025 issue of International Piano