Inevitably there are small differences of timing and points of emphasis in Brendel's new coupling of the B flat Sonata and Wanderer Fantasy: some 17 years separate it from his last recording of these works (now available at mid price). But as with previous issues in his new Schubert cycle, his basic approach remains unchanged. Always it is to the acutely impressionable, forward-looking romantic in the composer that he is most strongly drawn, someone who in the late Richard Capell's never-to-be-forgotten words, died young enough to have known ''nothing but the rapture and poignancy of first sensations, the loss of which is the beginning of wisdom''. Some listeners might question Brendel's great reliance on flexibility of pulse to achieve the gripping immediacy and intensity of his characterization. There is no doubt that more classically poised rivals like Pollini (DG), Perahia (CBS), Bishop-Kovacevich (Hyperion) and the one and only Clifford Curzon (Decca) take you just as close to the heart of the matter without such overt surrender to the impulse of the moment. But as DJF once so pertinently observed in a similar context ''it is not so much the supremacy of any one of them which is brought home as the range and depth of Schubert's genius''.
The Sonata's first movement brings a characteristic quickening of pulse to heighten second subject agitation in the minor. But nothing is more moving than the central development section, where Brendel so keenly reminds us of Schubert's alleged remark ''somehow I feel that I no longer belong to this world''. The slow movement's hypnotic inevitability is heightened by his respect for its andante marking (i.e. not too slow) and the exactness of the regularly reiterated left-hand accompaniment. I thought the Scherzo more crisp and tingling than in his earlier recording, though no one makes it dance quite as Curzon does. As for the finale, here Brendel makes you uncommonly aware of its unpredictability and emotional ambivalence—once epitomized by Schnabel when (for his pupils' benefit) singing the words ''Ich weiss nicht ob ich lachen, ich weiss nicht ob ich weinen'' to the main theme.
The Wanderer Fantasy is Schubert's most virtuosic keyboard work, and here Brendel combines brilliance with exceptional temperament—not least in response to the first movement's con fuoco. But as in his earlier recording, his exhilarating opening tempo compels him to slow down in lyrical second subject territory too drastically for the movement to cohere as it does from Pollini and Perahia, his two majestically classical rivals in this work. But Brendel's hyper-sensitive nuances in the slow movement struck me as more subtly controlled than before (not least in the hemi-demisemiquaver variation) while just as atmospheric in effect. He remains true to his old liking for a much slower trio to offset the unflagging rhythmic vitality of the scherzo, which incidentally he now brings to an even more excitingly dramatic climax than of old. The final fugue literally bursts from it—and how skilfully he orchestrates this last movement's jubilant but slightly patterned texture. The recording itself is more vivid, vibrant and forward than the older one—with not too many of those 'extraneous' proofs of this artist's intensity of involvement about which I've once or twice recently been reproached by readers for not mentioning.
In the past I've found much to admire in Leonskaja's masculine strength and ardour. But again here, as in her Trout with the Alban Berg Quartet (EMI), I don't feel her ideally cast in the vulnerable, Viennese Schubert. Despite the rocklike stability and tonal body brought to the Wanderer's flanking movements, they struck me as too objectively four-square. The scherzo too, for all her emphatic accentuation, lacks its true rhythmic spring; like Brendel she opts for a much slower trio without that player's beguiling phrasing to sustain it. After an impressively grave presentation of the Wanderer theme itself, I questioned her adoption of a faster tempo for the slow movement's first variation (and a few similar later inconsistencies) as well as a certain hardness and coldness in the curiously underpedalled climax itself. Perhaps it's only fair to add that the Teldec recording gives her piano a harder edge than anything heard from Brendel, Pollini or Perahia. By its very nature the G major Sonata allows her to achieve a more intimate relationship with her instrument and her listeners alike. Here she reveals much more sensitivity, even if not finding the same natural lyrical flow, the spontaneous charm and sense of wonder of Brendel or his erstwhile pupil, Imogen Cooper (Ottavo/Harmonia Mundi). What worried me most was the inordinate length of the first movement. Like Brendel in his recent (but not earlier) recording she repeats the exposition, in the process extending his timing by some three-and-three-quarter minutes to make a total of just on 21 minutes that seem to go on for ever.'