Aimi Kobayashi is not a pianist who leaves details to chance. Although she’s hardly a micromanager or fussbudget, her propensity for planning ahead walks a thin line between sensitivity and blandness in the Schubert Impromptus, D935. For example, the opening F minor selection features carefully worked out and ear-catching dynamic gradations but little of the symphonic continuity distinguishing such antipodal versions from Vladimir Horowitz and Maria João Pires. One wagers that Kobayashi’s nine-minute duration for the A flat Impromptu might signify an unusually slow tempo. In fact, the pianist’s pacing falls within ‘normal’ parameters but her generic (and seemingly predetermined) end-of-phrase ritards and tenutos add up like extra kilos over the holidays, and grow more predictable as the music unfolds. The same holds true with the B flat theme and variations, which never really takes wing except for when Kobayashi’s sonority opens up in the minor variation. Likewise, the concluding F minor Impromptu sacrifices syncopated swagger in pursuit of symmetry and getting all of the notes in place, and what is that annoying mannerism of pulling the tempo back to emphasise the accented broken octaves (at bars 17 and 18 and similar spots) all about?

Kobayashi’s square and clipped phrasing of the C minor Sonata’s first theme doesn’t hint at her beautiful voicing of the second subject or the development section’s increasing emotional involvement. She sheds inhibition in the Adagio, especially in the build-up to the climax, and delivers a liltingly lovely Menuetto movement. Yet, again, the rollicking finale favours scrupulous accuracy over the headlong intensity and sweep that Sviatoslav Richter brought to his performances, not to mention Alfred Brendel’s Vanguard release – the first and best of his myriad recorded versions. The two Schubert-Liszt transcription bonus tracks would have benefited from stronger melodic projection. Kobayashi’s husband Kyohei Sorita joins in on the A major Rondo for piano duet in a genial and seamlessly synchronised reading. Indeed, their approach would suit such Schubert duets as the Grand Duo, the Andantino variée and the woefully underrated Sonata in B flat. Will Kobayashi and Sorita take up this suggestion for their next recording?