Search - Brahms, Rosel :: Complete Piano Music 1

Brahms's early piano sonatas are big, noisy, extraverted pieces that require a virtuoso technique and temperament to successfully project. Peter Rösel is only partially successful with this one. He keeps it going and doesn't seem to have trouble with the very difficult writing, but he doesn't quite make the grand effects the music seems to want. It's still a good performance, but not as fine as his playing of the small, nuanced pieces of Op. 118. The piano sound, from East German recordings of the 1970s, is pretty good, but not outstanding. --Leslie Gerber