In DG’s eight-disc compilation of Beethoven’s miscellaneous piano works it was Pletnev, along with the young Italian Gianluca Cascioli, who stole the show. Between them these two brought freshness and finesse to a whole host of supposedly minor works, going far beyond the gap-filling exercise it might have seemed on paper. When Cascioli’s contributions appeared as two separate discs (7/97 and 7/99) he was allowed to add a sprinkling of pieces also recorded by Pletnev. So it is slightly disappointing that Pletnev’s two-disc set does not include the Op 126 Bagatelles (given to Anatol Ugorski in the complete survey), especially considering that the current catalogue lists surprisingly few complete recordings of the Bagatelles (amazingly the classic 1974 Kovacevich – Philips, 1/76 – seems to be deleted). That, however, is the only downside.
From the very first notes of the Dressler Variations – Beethoven’s first-known compo-sition, dating from 1782 – it is clear that Pletnev is a master of piano texture, and that he is going to use his mastery not only to ravish the ear but also to delight the mind. His nuances in the baby- simple Swiss theme and its artless variations, lasting barely three minutes in total, are quite delicious. At the opposite extreme, the grand set of 24 Variations on Righini’s ‘Venni amore’ comes across as a dry run for later cycles such as the Eroica or even the Diabelli Variations, both in overall design and in certain idiosyncratic details. Technical tours de force abound here, and Pletnev negotiates them all not only with phenomenal pianistic aplomb but, where appropriate, with dry wit. This makes for a fascinating glimpse into the laboratory of the 20-year-old Beethoven’s mind.
In the two early Rondos Pletnev is freer than some might wish with the notated dynamics, phrasing and articulation, and his touch suggests at times that he is thinking more of Scarlatti than of Beethoven. Nevertheless the most startling moments of whimsy in these pieces are not his but the composer’s. By contrast, in the Vienna-period Rondos of Op 51 (actually much earlier works than that opus number suggests) Pletnev seems to be thinking forward to the age of Lisztian rhetoric. But the fact that he is never satisfied with the default response to the surface of the music is much to be welcomed, and almost always his initiatives are stylish and effective.
Similarly the bagatelles radiate openness to all sorts of possibilities, from which you can be fairly sure that one of the less obvious and more delightful is going to be selected. In some instances Brendel finds more of a rough-and-tumble edginess; but Pletnev’s range of touch and tonal nuance outstrips them both and brings rewards of its own, as in the proto-Schubertian touches of Op 119.
Instrument and recording quality are as near to ideal as we are entitled to expect, and the authority of Barry Cooper’s annotations adds to the attractions of an outstanding issue