If you would expect performances of Beethoven sonatas to be more than ordinarily good from two such artists as Perlman and Ashkenazy, you would be right. The soft playing, in particular, in both slow movements impressed me most; and that of the variations in the Kreutzer is especially deeply felt. In the fast movements, fine as they are, I thought Ashkenazy's attack sometimes a shade too percussive. The sudden outbursts are completely right—as in the first movement of the Kreutzer where they violently interrupt the calmer music: but the pianist's very first chord is so loud that it is out of proportion; and surely its marking, fp, suggests something altogether different from, and much less violent than the vehement sfs of the separate chords punched out by the piano near the end of the movement. But to make too much of this would be to diminish the statute of two very fine performances and I do not want to do that.
The keen-eyed reader will not notice that these performances were originally issued on two different LPs. The Kreutzer was recorded in October 1973 and the Spring in the summer of 1974, both in Kingsway Hall in London, though producer and engineer were different. The gap turns out not to be significant and both were great successes as LPs (I have just enjoyed them as such). But the moment I started to play the Compact Disc I was amazed; for a good recording changes into what seems like the real thing, a performance with the players in your room. With the marvellous sound, round and mellow, and with a fine depth of bass, this is the real thing—or as near it as I have ever heard.
The CD has a further advantage. With the LP you had to turn for the last movement of the Kreutzer (the players make the first repeat of the opening movement and all those in the variations). Now, of course, you no longer have to and can listen undisturbed: and—a small point—the very brief Scherzo of the Spring (only 1'12'') is separately banded, which it was not on the LP.
I have already enjoyed this issue hugely and a good many times. But then, the music itself had something to do with that!'