There's a considerable difference in the actual sound of these two Mozart transfers. Brendel emerges the more full-bodied, and Schiff the more light and limpid. That in some way typifies their respective approaches to Mozart. Brendel presents the composer in full maturity and authority, while Schiff emphasizes the music's spring-like enchantment. I wondered if Brendel was marginally too serious in the first two movements of the A major Sonata, K331 (though certainly not in the exuberant Turkish finale) and equally whether the fluent Schiff was missing some of the dramatic intensity of K475 and K457. But just as Brendel excels in the tragic B minor Adagio, so does Schiff in the rippling happiness of the little C major Sonata.
In the B flat Sonata, K333, both artists come up against the catalogue's newest—and very truthfully recorded—CD contender, Mitsuko Uchida (Philips), who in style, and touch, can be placed somewhere between them. In the slow movement I prefer her to both. Her phrasing is as expressive as Schiff's without his small rhythmic fluctuations. And she finds greater significance in left-hand strands than Brendel, who concentrates more on melodic intensity up at the top. In their different ways all three artists have beguiling points to make in the first movement, but it is Brendel who responds most imaginatively to the development section's minor key shadows. I also prefer his finale to both of theirs for its judicious tempo, its rhythmic stability and its shaping as a whole. As for the great B minor Adagio, this elicits heartfelt response from both Uchida and Brendel, Uchida suggesting vulnerable human desolation while Brendel, more cosmic, conveys as sense of tragic acceptance of the inevitable.'