Julia Cload's disc comes with a glowing tribute by the great Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon: the sonatas, he says, ''take on a new dimension when played with such intense musically and forceful personality''. I'd agree very much about the intensity and forcefulness, and it's a delight to find performances that bring out the energy as well as the wit. Her avoidance of inapropriate 'poeticizing' is refreshing, especially since it never leads to dryness. Lyubov Timofeyeva often sounds merely comfortable in comparison: I'm sure Cload would have found a good deal more in the lovely minor-key Andante of HobXVI/22—and she surely wouldn't have omitted both the repeats.
I have to say though that I often find Cload aggressive—at times disturbingly so. Is the recording at least partly to blame? The piano isn't particularly close—in modern terms—but Cload's powerful right-hand accents are unpleasantly penetrating and the piano has a clangerous tone, magnified by a rather bright reverberation. There's also a fair amount of irritating tape-hiss. The softer sound (treble slightly muted) the Russian engineers produce for Timofeyeva would have suited Cload better, but not even in the most sympathetic of concert halls would I like to sit too close to her. There's so much to admire about her playing: the bright, sharply featured phrasing, the imperious command of the long line in movements like HobXVI/39's wonderful Adagio, the tremendous rhythmic drive in the same Sonata's prestissimo finale. My overriding impression, however, is of having been brow-beaten.
Lyubov Timofeyeva, as I suggested above, leans too far in the other direction. The electric charge is considerably lower, and while a lot of the playing has a gentle persuasiveness Cload lacks, the slow movements rarely reach even restrained eloquence—I mentioned the Andante of HobXVI/22; that of HobXVI/19 is more expansive, but rather short on character. What I miss in both discs is the combination of intensity, intelligence and poise revealed so impressively in Emanuel Ax's first Haydn disc (CBS (CD) CD44918,12/89)—compare him to Cload in just a minute's worth of HobXVI/23 and you'll see what I mean.'