In 2000 BBC Legends released Sviatoslav Richter’s all-Beethoven recital of June 11, 1975, from the Aldeburgh Festival featuring three Bagatelles from Op 126, the C major Sonata, Op 2 No 3, and the Hammerklavier Sonata. Here we have exactly the same programme from a week later, June 18, from the Royal Festival Hall. By and large the Aldeburgh broadcast benefits from a rounder piano tone and the venue’s more intimate ambience.

However, in order not to exceed the CD format’s then 80-minute time limit, BBC Legends omitted Op 2 No 3’s first-movement exposition repeat that Richter observed, whereas ICA retains the repeat. No important interpretative differences characterise one recital from the other, although one can nitpick at details. For example, the fast runs and brilliant upward chords in the finale of Op 2 No 3 slightly accelerate in London, as does the Trio’s Presto in the Scherzo of Op 106. The near breakneck tempo of the B minor Bagatelle (No 4) seems better contained in Aldeburgh but No 6 is more sustained and relaxed in London. Neither Aldeburgh’s nor London’s Op 2 No 3 Scherzo matches Richter’s deft and light-hearted Prague rendition from earlier that month (Praga Digitals, 6/96).

The quietly knotty contrapuntal sequences in the first movement of the Hammerklavier boast shimmering transparency, although the build-up in ascending fifths and sixths to the recapitulation momentarily unnerves Richter both in Aldeburgh and London. While he appreciably shapes the Adagio sostenuto with long-lined deliberation and intelligently scaled dynamic arcs, he obtains a more hushed, yielding poetic atmosphere in Aldeburgh.