Pianist Daniel Tong first came to my attention in 2013 through his sensitive and cultured coupling of Schubert’s A major Sonata, D959, and the Six Moments musicaux, played on a modern concert grand (Quartz, 5/13). Lately, on fortepiano, Tong has impressed several Gramophone colleagues with his ‘Beethoven Plus’ series alongside violinist Krysia Osostowicz (Somm, 9/18, 9/19) and Beethoven collaborations with cellist Robin Michael (Resonus, 4/20). For his first solo Beethoven album, Tong once again uses a Paul McNulty copy of a Walter fortepiano c1805. It’s the same model featured in Ronald Brautigam’s Beethoven sonata cycle for BIS. Here, however, the patina seems leaner and less overtly resonant, which may be due to Resonus’s slightly closer engineering.

Although Tong takes the Allegro molto e con brio directive of the C minor Op 10 No 1’s first movement with a grain of salt, his attentive articulation and marked dynamic contrasts prevent his moderate pace from dragging. On the other hand, he never really lets go in the Prestissimo finale, whereas Brautigam’s surging drama and sweep evoke the proverbial lion’s roar (BIS, A/06). The pianist’s metric liberties regarding strategic rests in the Allegro of the F major Op 10 No 2 may bother pundits, yet they represent the musical equivalent of expert comic timing. His pinpoint concentration throughout the second movement justifies a more brooding and deliberate basic tempo than Beethoven’s Allegretto suggests. No qualms about the Presto finale, where Tong’s rhythmic vivacity and points of emphasis mirror the music’s incisive wit.

For all of Tong’s clean and detailed fingerwork in the opening Presto of the D major Op 10 No 3, his phrasing often falls into foursquare patterns that sidestep the composer’s off-beat accents and implied syncopations. While I prefer Brautigam’s feeling of one beat to the bar in the Menuetto and Trio, Tong’s slower reading abounds with character. He conveys the Rondo’s humorous touches with an understated, effectively deadpan lightness. Best of all is his spacious, operatically informed Largo, one of the strongest period-instrument interpretations of this great movement I’ve heard, if not quite matching the red-blooded gravitas of modern-piano references such as Schnabel, Arrau and Horowitz. All told, a fine release.