To the best of my knowledge, Martino Tirimo is the fourth pianist to have recorded Beethoven’s complete solo piano music, following in the footsteps of Alfred Brendel, Rudolf Buchbinder and Ronald Brautigam. Tirimo explores this body of work in order of composition (so far as can be ascertained), yet will occasionally stray from chronology to ensure good programming sense. One encounters intriguing juxtapositions, where Beethoven the uncompromising artist gives way to Beethoven the practical populist knocking off a minuet for quick cash. Tirimo’s succinct annotations serve as a vivid musical and contextual guide to Beethoven at the piano, from the 12-year-old composer’s remarkably assured C minor Variations, WoO63, to his valedictory Diabelli Variations and Op 126 Bagatelles.

Tirimo favours expansive tempos that take Beethoven’s allegro and presto directives with a grain of salt. Consequently, listeners accustomed to the early sonatas transpiring with Schnabel’s hurling brio or Richard Goode’s dry wit will likely find Tirimo relatively austere by comparison, especially in the scherzos and finales. Yet he justifies and sustains such deliberation in several respects.

For one, Tirimo almost always propels the music forwards by virtue of a sense of rhythm that is solidly centred yet never rigid, helped by an appealing tendency to heighten up beats at certain junctures. A striking and perhaps extreme example of what I mean can be found in Op 27 No 1’s second movement. Here Tirimo’s conception of Allegro molto e vivace offers a pianistic parallel to Otto Klemperer at his sober extreme: unyieldingly slow, yet devastatingly specific and anything but dogged. This analogy similarly befits Tirimo’s handling of the woodwind-like interplay in Op 31 No 3’s Scherzo. On the other hand, the pianist holds back in the Waldstein Sonata’s coda, resulting in a less-than-exuberant pay-off to the patiently unfolding waves of runs and arpeggios that came before. Energy sometimes flags in the Appassionata’s concluding pages and in portions of Tirimo’s otherwise scorching and stinging Hammerklavier fugue (those devastatingly calibrated trills, for example).

Furthermore, Tirimo’s scrupulous attention to Beethoven’s subito dynamics and unpredictable accents illuminates the intricacies and subtleties of the composer’s essentially linear aesthetic, not to mention the pianist’s astute voice-leading and crystal-clear textures. Such an approach proves revealing in lesser-known works such as the harmonically surprising C minor Allegretto and the ‘easy’ G major Variations, WoO77 (Tirimo’s impeccably matched runs and embellishments). One also should take note of the pianist’s assiduous cumulative power and variegated articulation throughout the Eroica and Diabelli variation sets, the 32 Variations in C minor and the sweeping Les adieux Sonata finale.

Tirimo also proves more ambidextrous than many Beethoven practitioners in regard to a strong left-hand presence. Consequently, bass lines emerge in sharper and shapelier profile than usual, which is an asset to the late sonatas. Notice, for example, the uncommon clarity of the rapid, wide-spanning arpeggios in Op 90’s first movement, the hushed figurations in Op 110’s opening and the powerful polyphonic execution in Op 111’s exposition. Like Annie Fischer, Charles Rosen and Freddy Kempf, Tirimo is one of the few pianists to make Beethoven’s precise detached and legato articulation directives audible in Op 109’s second movement. He also addresses the Op 110 fugue and Op 111’s large-scale designs and carefully worked-out tempo relationships with care. The profoundest sonata slow movements may reach their emotional boiling temperature in the manner of Arrau, yet Tirimo’s long-lined concentration and sense of proportion are gripping on their own terms.

Comparable thought and consideration extends to pieces that others casually toss off. The nobility and gravitas of Tirimo’s C major Polonaise, Op 89, for example, could hardly contrast more with Julius Katchen’s upbeat swagger. The plaintive ‘Für Elise’ becomes a dark lament, while the shorter Bagatelles evolve from quips to monologues.

Collectors seeking a one-pianist solution to the complete Beethoven option may understandably choose Buchbinder’s more conventional orthodoxy (Teldec) as the safer bet. However, those who are interested as much in Beethoven’s creative process as in the ensuing end results should give Tirimo’s fastidious and mindful artistry its due. Hänssler’s excellent engineering and the pianist’s informative notes add further value to a major recorded achievement.