Eighteenth-century products though they were, Beethoven's three sonatas of Op. 10 all pre-echo things to come in the nineteenth. Melvyn Tan strikes an admirable balance between the classical and romantic in the young composer's make-up. With his stylish, imaginative vitality and very fleet fingers, he is certainly as persuasive an advocate for the fortepiano—and again he uses a Derek Adlam instrument 'after' a Nanette Streicher of 1815—as anyone in the catalogue.
The most expansive and forward-looking of the three is the last in D, with its tragic minor-key slow movement. Here I thought Tan at his best in transcending any hint of limitation in the instrument's expressive range. For moments of heightened fervour (as in the first movement's development and coda) he somehow elicits unsuspected reserves of tonal strength. As for the great Largo e mesto itself, here it's the intensity of his phrasing that gives so sharp an edge to the sorrow. The Menuetto, with its return to the bright light of day, brings a delightfully ebullient trio, and he catches just the right note of spontaneous unpredictability in the finale.
In the C minor Sonata he risks a breathless concluding Prestissimo, just occasionally (as towards the end of its exposition) losing a taut rhythmic hold. But for the most part this work emerges clear-cut and direct in its contrasts of dynamics and touch without anticipating the more powerful C minor voltage to follow in the Pathetique. Fast tempo for the F major Sonata's Presto finale also causes slight, but only slight, rhythmic hiccups when quavers cede to semiquavers. But as again in the little, later G major ''sonata facile'' his playing abounds in joie de vivre. I much liked the unforced eloquence of both their slow movements, especially the Schubert-foreseeing Allegretto of the former. The recording (made in Forde Abbey, Dorset) is truthful.'