Daniel Barenboim was just ten when he made his Viennese debut. To celebrate the fortieth anniversary of that event, together with his own fiftieth birthday, he returned to the city in December, 1992, to give concerts including those from which these live recordings were taken. Warm applause leaves no doubt of the audience's appreciation. And I would have joined in just as readily after the Impromptus. Barenboim plays them very much in the spirit of their title, that is to say, as if making new discoveries there and then, with the immediacy of his reactions much heightened by the presence of an audience. I particularly enjoyed the strong, romantically eloquent flow of No. 1, and his artfully shaded response to the harmonic implications as well as the lyricism of No. 2. Maybe in his very positively characterized variations of No. 3 he is a little over-robust in mid-way minor key outbursts. And to add to the caprice of No. 4 he takes the liberty of starting the coda's piu allegro some 70 bars too soon. But I'm sure Schubert wouldn't have cared about that.
The B flat Sonata would surely have fared better in a studio recording, and not just for the greater pianistic finesse a few small retakes would have ensured. Though warmly experienced, Barenboim's point-making struck me as too overt in the intimately self-communing first movement—not least an over-bold recall of the opening theme (at about 1'38'' in track 5) in the exposition, and a still louder one in the recapitulation. Again in the slow movement I thought him too consciously striving to lay bare the composer's heart. Surely the opening C sharp minor theme is all the more desolate, the more inexorable, when played without sentimental yieldings of pulse. And should the central section's upsurgence of hope mount to quite so excitable a climax? There is much to enjoy in the Scherzo (despite some slightly hiccupy sforzandos in the trio) as also in the finale, despite a more forcefully projected first episode than its dynamic markings might suggest. There's a touch of clanginess in the piano tone in louder contexts, but your ear soon 'tunes in'.'