From the viewpoint of sound, I'd question the wisdom of asking full price for this 69-minute dip into the five-disc cycle of Brahms's piano music recorded by Oppitz on a full and forwardly reproduced Bosendorfer Imperial five years ago. Though the performances are not without an ear-catching crystalline glint in the lighter wizardry of the Paganini Variations, too often I was conscious of a clangy treble in louder contexts. Moreover, in the heat of excitement Oppitz doesn't always listen to himself with as acute an ear for tonal beauty as do many of his eminent rivals. That said, there is much to admire in this German pianist's masculine strength (not least in the bass-line to which Brahms attached so much importance), his resolution, and his technical command. His mind is obviously as actively engaged as his fingers: no detail of cunning craftsmanship goes unobserved. Throughout the sets of variations he achieves bold contrasts without loss of continuity. In the Paganini set I sometimes wondered if he was too consciously responding to espressivo markings in the less demonstrative numbers—at the cost of the musical-box-like simplicity of No. 11 in Book One, for instance. And his yieldings do occasionally slightly slacken tension in the more searching numbers of the (very neatly launched) Handel set, as notably in No. 20. They certainly do at the start of the third, mezza voce D minor theme in the G minor Rhapsody. Of these two Op. 79 pieces I thought him more persuasive in the first in B minor with its sharp contrasts of agitation and lyrical calm. In sum then, the best-cast Oppitz I've yet encountered even if not winning all five of my possible stars.'