For pianists and music lovers who came of age in the 1970s and ’80s, Maurizio Pollini’s Beethoven recordings were considered the modern-day gold standard. Pollini’s approach to the composer was characterised by an objective classical rigour and avoidance of artifice channelled through an unflappable technique that permitted no vagaries, smudges or imbalances. The purity of his sonority, moreover, was underlined and perhaps exaggerated in the last three sonatas by DG’s close-up, analytic engineering, a far cry from the robustness and expansive rhetoric of Claudio Arrau’s antipodal Philips traversals.

Re-recording these works in concert nearly 45 years later, Pollini’s technique remains remarkably intact and supple, notwithstanding an ever-so-slight loss of definition in double-note passages, if one must be picky. Nor have his interpretations significantly changed over time, although certain details differ considerably. The main change concerns DG’s distant and diffuse sonic perspective, which reflects how you’d hear Pollini’s Steinway grand from the vantage point of an orchestra seat situated in the back rows of a large venue. In place of razor-sharp definition, the piano tone conveys added warmth, ambience, nuance and dynamic range.

As a consequence, Pollini’s firmly held tempo relationships in Op 109’s improvisatory opening movement seem to acquire more breathing room, abetted by the bass notes’ resonant ring, while his attacca launch into the Presstissimo makes a startling impact. Pollini takes the third movement’s theme and first variation slightly faster now, but his subjective, legato-tinged and melody-orientated parsing of Var 2 surprisingly contrasts with his erstwhile détaché. If the studio Var 3 emphasised clarity over speed, here Pollini throws caution to the wind, while Var 5’s tricky counterpoint similarly swaggers.

The younger Pollini infused Op 110’s opening Moderato with discreetly expressive give and take; here the pianist yields no quarter. His Allegro molto remains as bracing as before but now with additional urgency and angularity. The same applies to the Arioso’s central climax and the final fugal statement’s exultant cumulative power. ‘Purposeful bleakness’ was how my late American colleague Harris Goldsmith described Pollini’s fusion of high-octane technique and architectonic focus throughout Op 111. Notwithstanding a few rushed phrase-endings and smudges in the heat of battle (or maybe because of them), the present rendition seems far more contrasted and communicative. I’ve long given up complaining about Pollini’s audible vocal grunts and grimaces.