With the sonatas and bagatelles under his belt, Ronald Brautigam now turns to the variation sets for the 11th instalment in his projected complete Beethoven piano music cycle. Once again, the Paul McNulty model fortepianos serve the composer well in regard to their striking colour shifts upon changes in dynamics (and how Beethoven loves his sudden outbursts and whispers!), and marked differentiation in timbre from one register to the next.

Brautigam’s interpretations are stunning. He brings stylish character and life to each of the small variation sets and never misses a trick, so to speak. Notice how his ever-so-slight phrase distentions add piquancy to the minore variation in the WoO77 set based on an original theme, or the whirling momentum he achieves in the Das Waldmädchen Variations’ virtuoso passagework. What breathtaking élan and point Brautigam brings to the flashy scales and biting trills throughout the Variations on ‘La stessa, la stessissima’ from Salieri’s Falstaff, while the Variations on ‘Tändeln und Scherzen’ from Süssmayr’s Soliman der Zweite ravish the ear with eloquent cantabiles and impeccable timing on Brautigam’s part.

He also gives one of the finest recorded performances of the Eroica Variations. A steady basic pulse unifies the opening variations on the bass-line and the first five variations proper, as Brautigam makes expressive points through colour and articulation alone. The pianist’s slight acceleration of tempo for Var 6 underlines Beethoven’s reharmonisation of the theme and broken-octaves texture, while his clear distinctions between forte, fortissimo and sforzando intensify the canon-at-the-octave variation’s cross-rhythmic phrasing. Here the instrument’s peculiar-sounding lower notes make an appropriately petulant noise in the loud repeated bass-register chords.

Conversely, Var 8’s arpeggios boast a disembodied harp-like sonority that must delight Brautigam as much as it does this reviewer! The final fugue evokes Schnabel’s forward exultation but without that master’s inevitable smudges. While the recording reveals an extra degree of bloom and resonance in surround-sound playback mode, the drier-sounding conventional two-channel playback is no less attractive. Raise a glass to this terrific disc and wish Brautigam well as he faces the Diabelli Variations on the not-so-distant horizon.