Here is an antidote to the identikit Beethoven, to sonatas (and even cycles) recorded merely because an artist will sell. There’s nothing mass-market about François-Frédéric Guy, a pianist who has made Beethoven something of a speciality from the outset of his career and who has never been one to toe the line, as anyone who has heard him live will attest.

Unlike Bavouzet’s recently commenced cycle – superb, though temperamentally quite different from this one – Guy has made a point of mixing things up, of emphasising contrast rather than chronological progression. It’s Beethoven the master dramatist that comes across most clearly, to particularly compelling effect in the mighty coda of the Appassionata, in the Adagio of the Tempest, which he imbues with unblinking intensity, and in the opening movement of the Waldstein.

The acoustic takes a bit of getting used to: it can be somewhat unanalytical and there were times (in the first movement of Op 31 No 1, for instance) when I wasn’t certain whether Guy was being quite free with the pedal or it was an acoustic trick of the ear. I’m still not sure. The Andante of Op 79 is another high point, Guy unafraid to be quite free in his approach but sounding utterly convincing. I was less sure about the sonata’s opening movement: there’s tensile strength in spades but he lacks the contrasting delicacy that Goode, Kovacevich and Lewis reveal.

Frequently, in his search for the rhetoric of the music, Guy allows himself a certain amount of rhythmic freedom. In the opening movement of Op 101 he perhaps overdoes it: Gilels and Solomon are closer to the letter of the score and simultaneously sound more natural and authoritative. The same is true of the Langsam third movement: Solomon is relatively swift, Gilels produces a rapturously honeyed sound. Guy, on the other hand, is at his most convincing in the finale.

There are moments in the earlier sonatas, too, where Guy’s search for the extremes in Beethoven can lead to overly slow tempi. The Adagio grazioso of Op 31 No 1 is a case in point: his tempo is so spacious that he struggles to make the line sing, something Annie Fischer does with finesse and sureness, shaving nearly three minutes off Guy’s timing. It’s not the only approach, though, Brendel instead pointing up the movement’s Haydnesque qualities. In the opening Andante of Op 49 No 1 Guy is faster than in his earlier recording and all the better for it.

A mixed bag, then, but thoroughly thought-provoking. Guy’s approach is refreshing in its directness and honesty and – at his best – he is a highly persuasive Beethovenian.