It is amazing to me that it is already over 12 years since Krystian Zimerman won the Warsaw Chopin Competition. In this time he has made something of a speciality of Brahms's works, performing both the piano concertos, as well as the pieces recorded here, all of which were written before the composer was 23. Zimerman relishes their youthful bravura, and especially in the first two sonatas the energico mood predominates. But then, to balance this, the slow movements have tremendous poise and refinement—listen, for instance, to the delicately spun colours of the folk song inspired second movement of the C major Sonata.
Perhaps in these early sonatas he is a little too caught up in their virtuosity to convey adequately Brahms's range. Once the powerful stuff starts he tends to sound impersonal. However, the F minor Sonata and the Scherzo were recorded a bit later, and here his responses strike me as richer. The Scherzo is eccentric with an Alkanesque unrelenting quality about it. Moving on to the sonata Zimerman's control is characterizing the light-and-shade elements is quite superb and there is a wonderful incisiveness in his attack. In the central Andante one does not sense the very personal musings of Lupu's performance (Decca 417 122-2DH) or Kocsis's strength of personality (Hungaroton/Conifer HCD12601-2, 1/85); the experience is more like admiring a beautifully cut diamond. In the four Ballades, Op. 10, there is all the distinguished piano-playing one would expect, but Zimerman rather misses the profundity of the pieces. The recorded sound well conveys the rather light sonorities favoured by the pianist and it copes well with forte chords. The wonderful pianissimo range is exceptionally vivid.'