For his first recording on a fortepiano, Gianluca Cascioli has chosen works by Beethoven composed and published between 1796 and 1802, presented in chronological order. He plays a 2009 replica by Paul McNulty of a Walter & Sohn Viennese instrument from c1805. In an interview with Gabriele Riccabono in the booklet, Cascioli, who is now in his mid-40s, says that, although this is his first recording using a historical instrument, familiarity with fortepianos has informed his approach to Beethoven since his student days. This recording indicates he is the master of this Walter replica, fully exploiting its potential.

Cascioli’s phrases are inevitably shapely. He never rushes embellishments, always giving them their full melodic due. He is happy to interpolate fully fledged cadenzas where appropriate and he doesn’t shy from varying repeated melodies and passages. His stylistic departures from the text are particularly enhancing in the theme-and-variations movement of the A flat Sonata, Op 26, adding shape and nuance. Likewise, the ensuing Scherzo seems the perfect marriage of sonority, kinaesthesia and forward momentum. Voice-leading in the Minuet of the D major Sonata, Op 10 No 3, is exquisite and its tempo spot on.

It is in the rhetorical realm, however, that Cascioli can give pause for thought. The Adagio cantabile of the Pathétique strikes as rather brisk and calculated. In the first movement of the D major Sonata, the cadenza interpolated following the development and ushering in the recapitulation is perhaps too long and discursive. The coda of that movement, which should rise and blossom, is rendered earthbound by Cascioli’s tendency to pound the bass. The subsequent Largo e mesto, surely one of the most profound movements in early Beethoven, seems almost metronomic, when a little flexibility would enhance the air of pathos. Later, at 7'37", following the long crescendo as the drama reaches maximum intensity, there is no rhetorical breath or emotional relief; instead the music lurches forwards, business as usual. In the Rondo, Cascioli applies extravagant rallentandos to the ends of the opening phrases, which tend to destabilise the pace of the movement from the outset.