Unlike many of his rivals, Michel Dalberto is not confining his Schubert cycle to the familiar mature composer. This Volume 6 brings us the rarely heard early A flat Sonata, also the 13 Variations on a theme from a string quartet by his good friend Anselm Huttenbrenner, both written when he was still only 20. Dalberto is at his best in the Variations, so obviously influenced (as he mentions in his own introductory notes) by the Allegretto of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Contrasts of texture and voicing are savoured to the full. Yet he always conveys the theme's essential underlying gravity—and not least through his rhythmic precision.
In the lightweight A flat Sonata Dalberto hails Mozart as the predominant influence, but I would have thought there was more than a bit of Haydn here too? In the first movement I like the way he contrasts the springy first subject with the suaver second. For the Andante he favours a briskish tempo, making much of its detached, tick-tock accompaniment. The finale is fluent and carefree.
Whereas recordings of these two works are few and far between, it goes without saying that Dalberto is up against very formidable competition indeed in the Impromptus. While appreciating his desire to enter the by now ten-years-older Schubert's new world of romance, I still think the first of his chosen D935 set needs a firmer underlying rhythmic backbone: his rubato is surely far too loose. The second and third are pleasing enough, and his scherzando-like lightness in No. 4 is a pleasant change from the 'rage over a lost penny' approach so often heard. The recording is agreeably truthful.'