With Vol. 7 of his nine-volume set of the Beethoven sonatas under his belt, John O'Conor approaches the end of his Telarc cycle (though with such notoriously elusive and Himalayan peaks as Opp. 101 and 106 still to come). Generally, his performances have won praise for their distinctive restraint and perception, for the admirable way so many points are achieved by a naturally musical ease rather than by brute strength or insistence; for being what painters often call 'low in tone'. Yet while enjoying such undeniable quality I have to admit that in this instance O'Conor's lyrical and pensive attributes fail to match music as vital as it is inward, as propulsive as it is serene. The finales of six out of the seven sonatas under discussion possess a salty wit and vigour peculiarly Beethoven's own and positively cry out for a greater sense of their novelty, their personal and pioneering spirit. Here, if anywhere in Beethoven, exuberance is indeed beauty. The opening of Op. 14 No. 1 is surely too tentative for the composer's already imperiously thrusting argument and the underlying muscularity of the following allegretto is somehow missing. I would have welcomed an altogether firmer hand, too, in both the Op. 49 miniatures and wished that indications such as dolce had not been taken as an invitation to ease an already uncertain pulse, or that such ebullient dynamics as fortissimo had not been modified into a tame mezzo forte.
Listeners looking for razor-sharp articulacy and rhythmic resilience will note some uncertain trills in the opening movement of Op. 54 and feel themselves short changed in Op. 79's opening Presto alla tedesca. So, taken as a whole, these performances are a disappointment after O'Conor's energy and plain speaking in Vol. 1 (7/87). The recordings are warm but bass-heavy. For lyrical finesse combined with the most concentrated poetic emergy Wilhelm Kempff (who was, interestingly, among O'Conor's teachers) remains unrivalled in this repertoire (DG, 3/91).'