Kun-Woo Paik starts a Beethoven cycle for Decca with mixed results. On the plus side, his muscular, energetic pianism suits middle-period Beethoven’s bravura qualities, abetted by fingerwork that oozes determination and definition in every bar. Yet Paik also can be cavalier regarding details of accentuation, dynamics and tempo that are essential elements of Beethoven’s aesthetic and sound world.

In No 16, Op 31 No 1’s first movement, for example, Paik imbues the transition into the recapitulation with appropriate mystery, yet elsewhere telegraphs the composer’s subito pianos like a comedian who steps on his punch lines (bar 107, for example). Within Paik’s unusually slow parameters, the central Adagio grazioso’s long lines are admirably sustained, although the finale’s earnest clarity could use more transparency and elegance à la Wilhelm Kempff (the stereo versions on DG – A/97) or Richard Goode (Nonesuch, 9/90).

Paik also orchestrates the Tempest Sonata’s middle movement textures to haunting, rock-steady effect. But he lies too heavily on the opening movement’s motoric triplets while, conversely, pulling back at times from emphasising those downbeats in the finale that Beethoven specifically accents.

Paik hits and misses throughout No 18, Op 31 No 3, misjudging the first movement introduction’s tempo modifications but astutely outlining Beethoven’s cross-rhythms. The Scherzo proceeds a shade too fast for the woodwind-like staccati to register fully and one also might wish for a less static, more inflected Trio in the Menuetto or a nimbler, more sparkling finale.

Perhaps Paik’s Waldstein, No 21, doesn’t probe the score’s spiritual depths, yet his direct, uncluttered approach (what a rollicking left hand!) has a kinetic momentum that leaps from your loudspeakers. If you think Paik shows off by fingering the prestissimo octaves rather than playing them as glissandi, he makes a veritable (and not too subtle) stunt out of Op 54’s extensive first movement octaves, and nonchalantly dashes through the finale as if it was a Moszkowski étude.

Although Paik generates genuine excitement throughout the Appassionata, No 23, other pianists also do so with steadier basic tempi and more pronounced dynamic contrasts: the breakneck coda sounds brutish next to equally rapid, more meticulous traversals. The gnarly Les adieux, No 26, benefits more from varied and pointed articulation than Paik’s virile yet more generalised interpretation.

How the remainder of Paik’s Beethoven cycle will fare is anyone’s guess but until the next instalment my jury is still out, so to speak. Decca’s warmly detailed engineering accurately captures Paik’s sound and Jeremy Siepmann’s well written, informative notes deserve special mention.