I reviewed an impressive two-CD set of Schumann from this pianist (2/24), and the new release suggests an affinity for Brahms that may be even stronger. It makes sense to juxtapose early and late Brahms, since there was a concentration of solo piano works at both ends of the composer’s career. The earliest piece recorded here, the F minor Sonata, was composed at the age of 20, but after that he wrote only sporadically for solo piano until late in life.

The performance of the F minor Sonata captures its quasi-orchestral dimension and bardic atmosphere. Williams attends with care to details of dynamics, phrasing and articulation, for example differentiating between piano and pianissimo. The thick and often unwieldy textures present formidable challenges in terms of voicing, but these are handled comfortably.

The pianist makes a convincing case for the seldom-encountered Variations on a Theme by Schumann, based on a theme from the Bunte Blätter. This is Brahms’s most ‘romantic’ set of variations, the young composer obviously influenced by his revered older colleague’s extremes of mood and quirky rhythms.

In the late pieces, Williams’s playing is musicianly, tasteful and unexaggerated, with finely judged tempos. I like the way he delivers the dissonant counterpoint in the thematically obscure Intermezzo Op 116 No 5, while the gentle lullaby of Op 117 No 1 sings gracefully as the pianist observes the composer’s dolce indication. In the Ballade Op 118 No 3 there might be yet more magic in the middle section’s surprising transition to B major from the prevailing G minor tonality (from 0'59"), yet Williams effectively contrasts the vigorous chordal writing of the outer sections with that reflective middle stanza. In the gravely melancholic Intermezzo Op 118 No 6, the pianist evokes a veil of sorrow in the opening theme, with a hazy wash of pedal underpinning the sepulchral, broken diminished sevenths in the bass.

Finally, the Op 119 set, Brahms’s last for solo piano, opens with the pianist revealing the composer’s concentrated thought with wistful sadness. The piquant No 3, marked leggiero, could use a bit more lightness, but Williams delivers the implicit heroism of the concluding Rhapsody before driving to its dark conclusion in E flat minor.

For the late Intermezzos, Opp 117, 118 and 119, my touchstone remains Radu Lupu (Decca, 8/87), whose disc also includes the two Rhapsodies, Op 79.