Since December 1985, at least a dozen recordings of Schubert's B flat Sonata have appeared on CD, only three of which (Bishop-Kovacevich on Hyperion, Brendel on Philips, and Curzon on Decca) were previously available on LP. Bishop-Kovacevich is my personal favourite of the listed comparisons, although there are minor problems with the text and no coupling is offered. Brendel and Curzon, though more questionable in pianistic terms and omitting the first movement repeat, also offer superlative interpretations (coupled with the Wanderer Fantasia and the Moments musicaux (respectively). Ashkenazy, on Decca and also offering the Wanderer, is more finely recorded but not, I think, in the same class as an interpretation.
None of the three newcomers is the equal of any of these. Peter Katin's is a level-headed, intelligent reading which just fails to convert sensitivity into real communication, largely because his tonal palette is insufficiently varied and his compensating rubato tends to disturb the broader flow. The recorded sound, especially in the A minor Sonata, for some reason is rather tubby. Katin's is a good example, however, of the older English school of playing (characterized by Harold Schonberg as ''urbane... seldom passionate and seldom even dramatic'') and his restraint brings its own distinctive rewards. Dynamics and articulation are tastefully observed in the opening movement of the Sonata in A minor, and I very much liked the ambling gait of the slow movement. The Andante sostenuto of the B flat Sonata is obviously deeply felt. Katin takes 12'45'' here (compare Sofronitzki at 8'12''), converting the outer sections into full-blown adagios, and the last chord is held to the point of extinction (a full 22 seconds). With a less mannered prolonging of upbeats and with more imaginative tonal shading this could have made for a compelling, death-haunted experience. Cyprien Katsaris's sleeve-note reads more perceptively than his playing sounds. Rhythms are doggedly square and dynamic shaping is studied, so that tempos tend to feel slower than they actually are. Nor can I imagine many listeners warming to the wind-it-up-and-let-it-go approach to the Beethoven sonata or the harsh, close-up perspective on Katsari's Bechstein.
Sofornitzki's is exactly the sort of record I would normally pounce on in the record shops. A legendary interpreter of Scriabin, his LPs change hands at exorbitant prices in the West. But what a disappointment. The technique is clumsy, the interpretation by turns impatient, maudlin and absent-minded. A record such as this does no service to his memory.'