This programme of Beethoven piano sonatas presents an excellent opportunity for Varjon to display his expressive range and fluent keyboard technique in strikingly different contexts. In the opening movement of the A flat Sonata, for example, he produces an extrovert intensity that will doubtless appeal to those who find Goode’s controlled finesse too reserved. However, Varjon’s heaviness in the scherzo sounds inappropriate, and, in the slow movement of both this and the Waldstein Sonata, I missed the magical touch with which Goode atmospherically exploits the music’s subtle tonal and textural colours. Moreover, to my ears, Varjon’s relatively slow tempo in the Waldstein Sonata’s opening Allegro con brio denies some of the brilliance called for by Beethoven’s marking.
Varjon’s fluid, spontaneous approach to the F sharp major Sonata, though not as potently dynamic as Nikolaieva’s live performance, vividly conveys a sense of ‘living’ creative process. Oppitz’s scintillating performance of Les adieux is arrestingly evocative of the music’s overtly programmatic character. By comparison, the softer lighting given to Varjon’s version of this piece highlights his attractively restrained account of the work’s emotional progression from sadness (“Das Lebewohl”) to poignant nostalgia (“Abwesenheit”), culminating in exuberant elation (“Das Wiedersehn”).'