Aaron Copland once called Faure ''the French Brahms'', and we can find the same reticent warmth, harmonic subtlety and pianistic refinement, together with the ability to say much in little, in a Brahms intermezzo as we do in one of his nocturnes. But the comparison falls away as soon as we turn to Brahms's earlier piano music, and it's worth remembering that most of his solo pieces are either early or late—there's nothing save for the Eight Pieces, Op. 76 and the Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79, in the three decades and 80 opus numbers between the Paganini Variations in 1863 and the Fantasias, Op. 116, in 1892. There's also a marked contrast between the fire of the young Brahms writing big virtuoso pieces and the mellower emotions that a man nearing the end of his life expressed in fewer (but no less telling) notes.
In the three sonatas, all written before the composer reached 21, Gerhard Oppitz convinces us at once in the big gestures over the whole keyboard that characterize the opening of each, yet he is a gentle giant, too, in the tender moments that invariably follow by the next page. I think Brahms would have approved of the instrument he uses, a Bosendorfer Imperial tuned somewhat above A=440. Though while admiring a fine sound, I also feel some loss of intimacy—for example, we don't really get a pp una corda at 1'25'' in the first movement of the First Sonata, or the pp dolcissimo at 7'14''—and the treble is over-brilliant in the passage beginning at 6'22'' in the same movement. But one gets used to this and we are in safe interpretative hands, for Oppitz is at one with the ebb-and-flow of tempo and tone, while pedalling (not always easy in this music) is convincing too. He also manages the sometimes naive figuration well, as in the trio in the Scherzo of the First Sonata. His technical command is excellent and I doubt if the shy young Brahms in 1853 played that work to the Schumanns as cleanly as this.
The other two sonatas have the same strength and high seriousness, although in the F minor other artists may bring a subtler tonal poetry to the lyrical music—Zimerman (DG) and Kocsis (Hungaroton/Conifer) also better convey a youthful impulse and tenderness and they are well recorded, better than the warm-hearted Rubinstein (RCA) in 1959, while I find Lupu (Decca) too introspective and unimpulsive. Oppitz takes a predictably stern view of the E flat minor Scherzo and the Ballades, Op. 10, and I'd like the Handel Variations and the other variation sets still more if he'd found room for more fantasy and playfulness. However, the taxing Paganini Variations have sureness and strength.
Oppitz is also pretty well at home in the late music. The sorrowful B minor and E flat minor Intermezzos are compelling, though the former is taken slower than usual, as are the First and Third Intermezzos of Op. 117—the latter lasting a full 7'45'' and misjudged for the marking Andante con moto. (In the similarly marked Fourth Ballade, Oppitz takes a minute longer than Zimerman.) This serious artist sometimes fails to lighten his heart enough, e.g. in the B minor Capriccio, Op. 76 and the C major Intermezzo, Op. 119, with its markings of grazioso, giocoso and leggiero. The A flat major section in the E flat major Rhapsody (also marked ''graceful'') is short on charm, as is the A flat major Intermezzo, Op. 76. And a more tenderly gentle trio of the G minor Ballade would have provided a better contrast with the fiery outer sections.
Nevertheless the pianist is so good at conveying the Brahmsian dour or questioning seriousness that with that one reservation, I would say a collector getting these Compact Discs of the Brahms piano music should not be disappointed. I'll point out, however, that not quite everything is here—there are studies and other smaller items that have not yet entered the concert repertory.
The same pianist's earlier (1981) Orfeo recording of the Third Sonata offers a strong account, in which some tempos differ from the later one but still convince. However, the 1989 performance for Eurodisc seems to me more mature and interpretatively more of a whole, and the same applies to the Op. 119 Pieces, while the later CD has better sound and more generous length.
Jonathan Plowright, the winner of the 1989 European Piano Competition, enters this strong field with a powerful and thoughtful F minor Sonata. His recording is a bit boomy, but it is faithful and the playing shows why this Yorkshire-born pianist has already made a reputation; technically sure and strong yet flexible, he is well equipped for this music and, indeed, is rather better than Oppitz at showing us its mysteries, although his quiet eloquence in the slow movements does not have the twilight beauty of Kocsis or Zimerman. Also, often in gentler passages such as the Trio of the Scherzo I miss a pianissimo—though at the end of the G minor Rhapsody his dynamics are just right. At times, e.g. the fest und bestimmt at 0'47'' in the first movement, he lets momentum slacken somewhat.
The shorter pieces are pithy and dramatic, but sometimes could show still more spontaneity and fantasy, as well as the dancelike element in the B minor Capriccio. There's some prolonged rustling beginning at 1'38'' in track 7.'