The conditions Maria João Pires finds necessary for the realisation of her ideals are her business‚ not ours‚ so while I’m interested to hear of the cultural centre she has founded‚ I hope I may be excused for setting DG’s promotional video to one side and going straight to her CD. This is the first one to be made there‚ in Portugal‚ DG having taken the mountain to Mohammad‚ so to speak‚ and for all admirers of an artist who records rather seldom‚ expectations will be running high. I think the first thing to be said is that‚ so far as the sound is concerned‚ we could be anywhere. The firm‚ clean sonority is close enough to remind you that the piano is essentially a percussive instrument. It does its job‚ but outside of the opening movement of the Moonlight Sonata it is not ingratiating and it certainly doesn’t offer much in the contemplation of quiet song. At the other extreme it startles when it sometimes flares up quite fiercely. There is no character to the acoustic to contribute to the impression of someone‚ somewhere‚ playing to us – or of music freed from the instrument‚ caught on the wing. In all this‚ Pires must be accountable too. Going straight to the nub of it‚ she disappoints me because she conveys so little sustained delight in the communicating of these wondrous pieces. The effect overall‚ each time‚ is overworked. A current doesn’t run through. Not one of them gives the feeling of a performance – or as a colleague put it‚ of a player having hit the ground running. Too much editing? Well‚ I wonder‚ and the unconvincing timing of the many pauses in the capricious E flat Sonata‚ Op 27 No 1‚ may be a tell­tale sign. Similarly in the Moonlight‚ where the first two movements are excellent but the force of the work as an emotional crescendo is not clinched because the finale is not gathered up in one sweep. In the late E major Sonata‚ I do not understand why so much of the first movement has to be so loud and the contrasts so steep‚ and why so many of Beethoven’s dynamics in the variation movement – indications of pianissimo especially – are ignored. More importantly‚ an account of this great work which fails to move me doesn’t get my vote.