Gerhard Oppitz sets out his stall in the very first bar of the Pathetique. We are clearly in for a bigboned, masculine Beethoven and if any doubts remain about the pianist's intentions they are scotched by the aggressive delivery of the hand crossing second subject.
In principle there's nothing wrong with that, of course. The alarm bells do ring, however, when the harmonic explorations in the middle of this movement provoke so little musical response- and hearing Oppitz's forced cantabile and plodding rhythms in the slow movement, the suspidon grows that these may be not so much uncompromising as plain insensitive performances.
Faith is restored to a limited extent in the outer movements of the Moonlight—the first movement can certainly take this threatening, anti-impressionistic approach and the finale development section brings some insightful shaping. Oppitz's strong fingers are well adapted to the more forceful pages of the Appassionata, too. But a curious impression of lethargy emanates from the middle movements of all three sonatas, largely, I think, because rhythmical stresses are generally too even and chords generally too thickly textured. Accents frequently grate on the ear, the crucial pedal markings in the Appassionata first movement are ignored, and, although the point is academic in this instance, the finale repeat is omitted. DG's recording is a fraction close for such strongly projected playing, but I would not put the frequent crudity of texture down to that, or to the instrument, which seems excellent.
I have selected two very different comparative versions—Barenboim on EMI for the big, dramatic approach at its most inspired (more consistently so than on his DG remake though still by no means uncontroversial), and John O'Connor for a more self-effacing, but ultimately refreshing view, which also happens to be beautifully recorded by Telarc/Conifer.'