I recently rhapsodised here about some Mozart piano sonata recordings by Ronald Brautigam. And that got me thinking about how Beethoven piano sonatas sound on a similar instrument. So when I came across a bargain box of Beethoven piano sonatas played by Melvyn Tan, on Virgin, five CDs for a tenner, I grabbed it.

At two quid a throw you can't be disappointed, and actually this is pretty decent playing. But in Tan's hands, I don't find the fortepiano adding much, and I do find it subtracting quite a lot. Again and again, when Tan plays, I found myself thinking that, if this is how it sounded when Beethoven himself played these pieces, then what Beethoven would have wanted them to sound like would be how they do typically sound to us, played on the modern piano.

I found Tan's rhythmic habits somewhat disconcerting. Again and again, I felt that the smooth flow of the music was being needlessly mucked about with, but maybe this is just the result of what I am used to hearing rather than what I ought to be hearing.

I would now love to hear someone else doing those Mozart sonatas on the fortepiano.

And I would also love to hear Ronald Brautigam playing the Beethoven sonatas. (How many (forte)pianists do you now think that of?)

I suspect that I would not especially like the Mozart, but would find Brautigam's Beethoven absolutely thrilling.

When writing about Brautigam's Mozart sonatas, I said that Mozart piano concertos don't sound nearly so good on the fortepiano. Yet, I completely forgot about this posting, in which I rhapsodised also about Brautigam playing the Mozart D minor Piano Concerto, on the fortepiano. This man can really play.