I enjoyed this account of the Fourth Concerto when I first heard it on LP, and now that it appears on CD with the Emperor as complement—the LP had offered only a filler, the Variations, Op. 34—Jorge Federico Osorio's Beethoven certainly deserves to be noticed again. It is strong and fresh and carried forward by an interesting musical mind. If these performances are not first division that's because they show signs of having been run up, as record productions, with not much time to spare; but the least one can say is that they make an impressive visiting card for the pianist.
He is a serious and accomplished Beethoven player, with plenty to say about both pieces, and he sustains attention by commanding all the notes so well. It is not a question of driving the Emperor along as a virtuoso concerto but of filling it out with the most musicianly virtuosity. What tells against the record, a bit, is the let-come-what-may sound picture and the rather shallow orchestral sound. As a corporate effort, the performances are like that too: one-dimensional, as if time wasn't available to attempt more than a good professional job, with the soloist out front and making the running. I exaggerate a little; the orchestral support is better than routine, and maybe there is something just a little callow about this young Mexican pianist in not doing more to play with the orchestra as opposed to alongside it. That doesn't seem to have been on the menu, however, so he just gets on with it. I do not complain because he really is very good.'