Gerhard Oppitz concludes his Beethoven cycle on top form. So organically does he interweave the lyricism and rolling urgency of Op 109’s opening movement that the music appears to be improvised on the spot. The Prestissimo does not grab your attention via speed but rather through subtle shifts of emphasis in echoed phrases. Oppitz plays the third-movement variations beautifully, with intelligent voice-leading and genuine abandon in the trills. His heartfelt yet well thought-out Op 110 operates on the same high level. The tempo relationships in Op 111’s Arietta are exactly on the money, without compromise nor the slightest rigidity, while Oppitz’s suave virtuosity and intensity of expression triumphantly mesh in the first movement. Hanssler’s distant ambient perspective remains this cycle’s principal liability.

While DG favours a similar sonic philosophy for Op 2, the piano itself emerges in less opaque detail. Move the microphones any closer, and Maurizio Pollini’s hair-trigger articulation and inner drive (to say nothing of his foot stomps) would acquire Stephen Kovacevich’s lethal edge. Pollini shares Andras Schiff’s propensity for lean, biting fortepiano-like textures and acute attention to detail, but with more fire and brio, and not an arch bone in his body. The F minor and C major Sonatas’ outer movements nearly fly off the printed page, while each work’s third movement dances on air in a weightless one-beat-to-a-bar. By contrast, the pianist’s eloquence and sustaining power justify his expansive trajectory in the slow movements. This is Pollini’s most arresting Beethoven release since he set down the late sonatas 30 years ago.

Taking Beethoven’s overly optimistic metronome marking with a grain of salt, Mitsuko Uchida launches into the Hammerklavier’s Allegro with a note-to-note intensity and polyphonic awareness that lets up only when the pianist gratuitously fusses with the pulse. She layers the Scherzo’s textures like a game of three-dimensional chess, yet curiously underplays the laughing tremolo chords and the hurricane scales that precede them. It takes several hearings to appreciate fully Uchida’s understated cohesion and careful dynamic scaling in the Adagio sostenuto. No one can deny her concentration and clarity in the final movement, notwithstanding a few quibbles. For instance, her trills leading out of the Largo into the Fugue sound tacked‑on and lack transitional magic, while her change of gears for the D major theme in quarter notes belabours the obvious mood-change. Furthermore, her ritard on the second-to-last pair of chords softens the final cadence’s defiant last word.

Uchida’s Op 101 also contains much to admire. Following her ripe and ruminative first movement, she sets off a grenade under the March’s first chord and sails through the knotty trills and skips without a scratch, but with less consistent rhythmic spring than expected. Save for a slightly affected quality to her soft detached chords, Uchida triumphs in the unwieldy fugal finale, shaping the rapid, conversational counterpoint with effortless aplomb. In contrast to Oppitz and Pollini, Uchida benefits from state-of-the-art sound.