As a frequent admirer of both the musicianship of Grigory Sokolov and the enterprise of Opus 111, I found this disc something of a disappointment. In a resonant, none too clear live recording from Helsinki’s Finlandia Hall, Sokolov gives a wearyingly self-indulgent account of Schubert’s last great sonata which simply cannot bear comparison with either the visionary performance of Stephen Kovacevich or the intellectual rigour and easy command of Alfred Brendel in his renowned 1971 Salzburg performance. Pollini (DG, 4/88), Lupu (Decca, 11/94) and Pires (Erato, 7/86) are also still available and still, for me, more revelatory in their totally different ways.
There is much heavy, laboured breathing from both the fingers and the lungs in the first movement, where the policy seems to be if you can linger, then do. Despite some nicely sprung staccato and full, firm chording, the movement lacks the structural definition of Kovacevich’s performance, both in a slack balance of melody and counter-melody, and in dynamic shaping which tends to move by fits and starts rather than with the sensitive contouring of a Kovacevich or the long-sighted wisdom of a Brendel.
Brendel, above all, shows that fluent onward movement increases rather than decreases intensity. His, not surprisingly, is the most brisk slow movement, at 8'52'': Sokolov limps in at 10'47'', in an Andante which sounds rather as if he is pushing against a huge granite rock-face and gulping for oxygen the while. The singing line and the music’s oscillating lilt both suffer at this tempo: the movement of the two hands feels dislocated. Sokolov’s bumpy dynamic rubato inhibits momentum through the drumming modulatory passages where Kovacevich provides the most concentrated and mesmeric playing of all.
Sokolov’s finale reveals considerable arm and finger power and emotional commitment, but again his lack of structural sense lets him down. His performance of the G major Sonata, D894, is better proportioned, and more at ease with itself, though still subject to self-indulgence.'