As in his previous Rubicon release (4/19), Karim Said again explores connections between teachers and disciples, with Mozart and Beethoven on one side and Schoenberg and Webern on the other. Elegant symmetry and subtle modulation of dynamics characterise all three movements of Mozart’s F major Sonata. The pianist’s discreet pedalling and masterly finger legato recall Walter Gieseking’s Apollonian approach, most tellingly so in the Adagio. Although the Allegro assai finale goes like the wind, Said’s control and classical reserve prevail; don’t expected Lili Kraus’s nervous energy or Roberto Prosseda’s inventive ornamentation.

On the other hand, the two Schoenberg Op 33 pieces benefit from Said’s dynamic surges, emphatic accents and astute linear awareness, in contrast to, say, Peter Serkin’s lighter textures and more internalised phrase-shaping (2/72). He cogently conveys the foreground/background levels and terraced dynamics throughout Webern’s Variations, albeit without the microscopic scrutiny of either Krystian Zimerman (DG, 6/00) or Piotr Anderszewski (Erato, 8/04). In the first of Schoenberg’s Five Pieces, Said takes less time than Paul Jacobs (Nonesuch) to ‘smell the roses’, so to speak, imparting more lilt to the central section’s intimations of a waltz, although Jacobs sweeps through No 2 more fervently in relation to Said’s fuller-bodied gait. Yet Said underplays No 3’s contrasts between détaché and sustained phrases that Pollini brings out to devastating effect (DG, 5/75).

One cannot fault the striving for unity that governs Said’s conscientious pacing for each variation in Beethoven’s Op 35, as well as his attention to detail. It’s easier said than done, for example, to keep Var 4’s left-hand scales and right-hand staccato chordal outbursts on an even keel, or to impart a real sense of line to Var 6’s broken left-hand octaves as Said admirably does. The final Fugue boasts wonderful forward impetus and exuberance. I only wish the latter qualities would have come out in more overtly virtuosic variations. Compare, for example, the vividness and assured sheen of Var 9’s double notes or Var 13’s sempre forte leaps between single notes and chords in recordings from Víkingur Ólafsson, Cyprien Katsaris and Inna Faliks alongside Said’s relatively workaday execution, and you’ll hear what I mean.

Yet in each of Schoenberg’s Six Little Pieces, Op 19, Said makes every note and every silence count, even if No 2’s repeated G/B dyads ought to be slower and more deadpan. Gramophone’s Jeremy Nicholas provides wonderfully literate and informative annotations.