My introduction to Boris Giltburg was in November 2014, when he appeared with the Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop playing Rachmaninov’s First Concerto. The previous June, Alsop had conducted the concerto finals for the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, where Giltburg won first prize. The qualities in his playing that impressed on that chilly autumn afternoon – beautiful singing line, variety of touch and wide dynamic palette, instant and easy communication with the audience and a no-nonsense stage manner – have stood him in good stead since. In addition to a fine series of recordings, primarily of the Russians but ranging to Schumann, Liszt, Dvořák, Grieg and, of course, Beethoven, he has also emerged as an inveterate blogger. Giltburg has written that, during 2020, he set out to learn and film, in collaboration with Stewart French, all 32 Beethoven sonatas, only nine of which he had played at that point. The separately released Naxos recordings reviewed here, including the canonic sonatas up to 1800, represent the beginning of the audio element of that overall project.

The series gets off to an auspicious start with the F minor and A major Sonatas of Op 2. In both, Giltburg admirably conveys the young Beethoven building on the foundations of his older contemporaries, alive to their latest innovations while posing novelties of his own, if not yet audaciously, certainly unmistakably. Textures are consistently transparent and the musical discourse unfolds unambiguously, nowhere more powerfully than in the furious Prestissimo finale of the F minor Sonata. Giltburg’s passionate reading sidesteps bluster while achieving a credible equivalent on the modern instrument of the quieter dynamics and more rapid decay of early 19th-century Viennese pianos. Only the immense C major Sonata, Op 2 No 3, seems to ask more questions than it answers. Despite its buoyant energy, classical proportions and judicious pedalling, the sonata’s impact is diminished by a certain sameness of articulation, with attack and release strategies seeming calculated and predictable. One is left with the impression of a work held at arm’s length rather than fully, comfortably inhabited with freedom and spontaneity.

In keeping with the character of both the Op 14 Sonatas, Giltburg’s approach is prevailingly lyrical. One cannot help observing, however, that the opening Allegros of each may not be exactly equivalent in spirit. The calm of the E major Sonata when applied to the rather more ebullient G major Sonata sacrifices a good deal of the latter’s jocularity.

For me, the two standouts of the series thus far are Opp 13 and 22. I can think of no other performance of the Pathétique that imbues the Grave introduction with a greater sense of melancholy desolation. For once it is a true Sonata pathétique rather than a Sonata furieux, and taken as a whole it is thoroughly compelling. The Adagio demonstrates Giltburg’s ability to rise to levels of genuine eloquence through a disarming simplicity of utterance. The Rondo is lean, insistent, more detached than legato and prone to plead its case rather than setting out a fait accompli.

The bright, ingratiating Op 22 is also brimful of character, its narrative unfolding with a charming urgency. Giltburg captures the luxurious singing beauty of the Adagio while giving full play to its ominous undercurrents of ambivalence. Characteristic Beethoven idiosyncrasies are seamlessly woven into a less than courtly minuet and the Allegretto Rondo, despite disruptive excursions, exudes a Schubertian grace and ease. As with the Pathétique, the B flat Sonata scores all its points with earnestness, discretion and a strong point of view that departs from the norm. In a sense, it typifies what one might hope for in a traversal of familiar repertory by an outstanding young artist: fresh perspective on terrain one thought one knew, shedding new light in view of current realities, sincerely expressed with commitment and originality.