No, this is not the same fortepiano – a copy of a 1795 Anton Walter – that Ronald Brautigam used for his Haydn recordings on BIS. Beethoven chafed at the light action, thin resonance and usual five-octave span of the 18th-century Viennese instrument but it didn’t stop him from stretching it beyond its limits in Sonata No 8. So Brautigam is right to switch to a copy of an 1802 Walter that represents the bigger fortepianos, with greater potential for reflecting artistic dictates, which came into being after 1800.

The opening Grave of this work is commandingly played, note values precisely observed, and with a staying power that exploits its dynamism without any mechanical rigidity. At one time Brautigam wasn’t above a denigrating heartlessness but now he can drive even the main section of this movement (a real Allegro di molto e con brio) with a sort of plasticity that actually enhances the shock of the music. Intensity of expression is graded but the clarity of passagework and the starkness of texture that a fortepiano can also expose are not compromised.

Small flaws, like a lack of playfulness in parts of Nos 9 and 10, however, pale beside Brautigam’s interpretation of the slow movement of No 11. Artur Schnabel unfolds this elaborate Adagio con molto espressione with an expansive, deep-toned grandeur. The gravity is inescapable; and so it is, in an entirely different way, with Brautigam, whose restlessly dramatic line draws out extremes in the music that seem prophetic of Chopin. A disputable view, but an engrossing one none the less. The sound, even in non-SACD ‘old-fashioned’ stereo, is most credible.