The traditional, legendary view of Beethoven presents him as a fiery, temperamental iconoclast, but it's surely a characteristic of great music that it expresses many different aspects of its composer's personality. Schiff and Fellner for the most part give us a suave, civilised impression of Beethoven; not superficial - there are moments of profound contemplation - but with fewer rough edges, fewer uncontrollable flights of passion than we usually hear. Fellner's exceptionally smooth, expressive touch, and Schiff's warm, well-rounded tone make for interpretations of the more cantabile music that are particularly memorable: the opening Allegro of Op 69 doesn't want for energy, but the emphasis is on the beautifully shaped melodic lines. The minor-key transformation of the opening melody in the development section is unusually plangent. In one or two of the quicker movements, though, I felt the playing was just too civilised - the first Allegro of Op 5 No 2 could, with advantage, have had more urgency and intensity (it's a great shame, by the way, that they omit all the long repeats in both Op 5 sonatas). The fugal finale of Op 102 No 2 sounds extraordinarily smooth and poised for such a notoriously knotty piece. That something is lost by such an approach is made clear from a comparison with Maisky and Argerich's high-speed, explosively dynamic performance.
In lively movements such as the finales of the Op 5 sonatas, Schiff sometimes plays the medium-fast detached notes very short and strongly accented, and fast passagework with a rather fierce off-the-string bow-stroke. His desire, I'd guess, is to achieve maximum clarity, but so sensitive to balance is Fellner that (on this very clear recording) the cello has no difficulty being heard and, to my ear, these very unclassical bowings are too intrusive. Fortunately, this happens only infrequently - what remains in the mind most strongly are the beautifully realised introspective moments - the dreamy Andante at the start of Op 102 No 1, in Op 5 No 1 the slow passage in the first movement's cadenza, and the adagio variation of WoO46. Indeed, all three variation sets are very fine - the brilliant piano passages in the two earlier works (WoO45 and Op 66) tossed off with unostentatious virtuosity, the dialogue between the instruments both playful and expressive. The scherzo of Op 69 is outstanding in a different way; the tied notes of the main subject are reiterated gently in the way Beethoven seems to have intended, but which is almost never heard. Misha Donat's excellent booklet-note quotes Czerny's description of the effect, which adds a subtly disturbing atmosphere to the movement.
Along with the mercurial, spontaneous Maisky/Argerich set, I'd recommend Schiff and Fellner for the way they make the music sing.
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