No sooner has the first double-disc release in HJ Lim’s Beethoven sonata survey (5/12) appeared than EMI releases the entire project. If it seems unusual for a 24-year-old pianist to make her EMI solo debut with all of the Beethoven sonatas, think about the label sticking its corporate neck out on behalf of the young Daniel Barenboim and his Beethoven cycle in the late 1960s. In turn, Lim herself takes chances, and the vibrant yet quirky characteristics in her playing I observed in my review of Vol 1 continue to rampage throughout the remaining works. In the main Lim favours basic tempi that are fast to the point of breakneck (Op 10 No 1’s rapid-transit Prestissimo finale, Op 101’s rather harried march), along with rhetorical inflections like outsize dynamics, liberal modifications of pulse, hard-hitting accents and attention-grabbing tenutos. Lim makes no bones about employing ‘old-school’ devices such as rolling chords, added bass octaves and mannered left-hand anticipations – indeed, the Pathétique Sonata’s Adagio cantabile seems less like a Wilhelm Backhaus outtake than a renegade from the Liberace museum. At times you wonder if you’re hearing a piano sonata or watching an animated cartoon.

Lim’s liberties convince the most when they intensify the music’s inherent character, such as the helter-skelter nervous energy she generates in Op 2 No 2’s first-movement scales, or how the Op 78 finale’s stinging accents goose up Beethoven’s syncopated slurs and rapid shifts between major and minor tonalities. At the same time, Lim allows similar gestures to defuse or even derail the composer’s rhythmic momentum. Note, for example, the gratuitous speed-ups in Op 2 No 3’s first-movement exposition, Op 31 No 3’s slightly out-of-control Presto con fuoco finale, Op 26’s blurry fourth-movement Allegro or the equally breathless Op 54 finale. The lyrical Allegro vivace of Op 90 lurches like a seasick Lieder singer. The Appassionata’s coda’s alternating broad and rapid chords are exaggerated light years beyond what Sviatoslav Richter used to do, and sound vulgar and cheap in Lim’s hands, rather than genuinely exciting.

There’s no doubting Lim’s sincere quest to inhabit and internalise these works, yet simplicity and discipline do not consistently factor into her interpretations. Ironically, Lim’s headstrong personality proves most interesting and original when she gets out of her own way. The Trio of Op 27 No 1’s Scherzo movement has rarely sounded so irascible and giddy since Schnabel’s recording, while Lim brings rare lightness and grace to the little Op 79 Sonata. Although some may raise an eyebrow over her animated Op 110 fugue or Op 111 Arietta, Lim’s ironclad control and assiduous transitions save the day. In fact, it’s remarkable how the Arietta’s jazzy dotted rhythms never flatten out into even ‘undotted’ patterns, even at Lim’s optimistic speeds. Because Beethoven did not intend his two early Op 49 sonatas for publication, Lim omits them.

The digital download iTunes Plus 256kbps transfers – on which the set also appears – are ever so slightly less full-bodied than their CD counterparts, although the slightly hollow and monochrome sound and frequently buzzing low notes don’t represent the warmth and richness I’ve heard Lim reproduce from her Yamaha CFX grand in concert. In sum, even at her most wrong-headed, Lim’s strong personality and obvious Beethovenian affinity bode well for her mature remakes 20 years from now.