It's impossible not to enjoy the scintillating agility of Pogorelich's fingerwork and the liveliness of his imagination. Both these earlier, less frequently heard sonatas come up as if newly minted. But I would question his sense of style. In the faster flanking movements of both works, even if not their slow movements, I often felt that I was listening not to the central European Haydn but to that volatile southerner, Domenico Scarlatti. This is partly due to the harpsichord-like crispness of his touch (particularly in staccato) and his sharp-cut dynamic contrasts, but equally to his predilection for very swift tempos.
Both the opening Allegro moderato and the concluding Presto of the A flat Sonata are surely questionably fast for this composer, and in the exposition of the former (notably in its codetta) his fleet fingers even race ahead of the beat. Its slow movement is a different story. Even if his tempo might be thought questionably slow for an Adagio non troppo, he sustains it with a noble dignity and acute awareness of the chromatic implications en route. But again here (as indeed throughout the whole disc) he repeats the longer second section of the movement as well as the first, and towards the end of its 13AE minutes I'm bound to admit that my own concentration began to wander.
In the earlier D major Sonata there is no mistaking his relish of Haydn's love of teasing surprise. But surely he would have been wiser to play the first movement's exposition in strict time first, and reserve his own rhythmic caprice for its immediate repeat? On subsequent third and fourth hearings, things begin to sound just a trifle self-consciously mannered. His boldness of attack and colouring make for an arresting finale. But again I found him most trustworthy in the central Andante, with its rich cello-like cantabile. I'm ignoring a few questionable textural and dynamic differences in this performance since I was following from an old Peters edition (probably now out-dated) of the score. The recording itself is forward and warmly ripe in sound.'