Llyr Williams's discography is formidably extensive, including Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas, 9 volumes of Schubert('A Schubert Journey'), richly inclusive Schumann and Liszt, and now a two disc album of early and late Brahms.
Starting positively-- as all teachers and critics should-- I would say that the greater the introspection the greater Williams's success. In the Variations on a theme of Schumann, an uneven work, though one containing some of Brahm's most beautiful and confidential writing, his love of the music is allowed to surface above and beyond the notes and the same could be said in the, again, deeply introspective opus 117 Intermezzi. Yet even here while admiring a deep-rooted instinct for poetry I found myself longing for greater projection, for the pianist to be tempted to let go. I am not arguing for excess or theatricality, but for an often-necessary emergence from shadows into light. Flashing fingers and blazing temperament are hardly Willimas's forte, nor would I wish them to be, but a lack of ardour has little place in early Brahms, in the youthful, heroic, no- holds- barred rhetoric of the F minor Sonata, opus 9. Here, in particular, instead of allowing Brahms his surge and impetus there is too often a grateful sinking into repose. How odd, too, on another and different level, to hear such literalism in the halting and unsettling, near minimalism of the Intermezzo No 5 from the opus 116 Fantasien; here, the extraordinary is made ordinary.
Elsewhere too many phrases fail to rise and fall, their underlying intensity left to the imagination. Brahms late piano works my be of an autumnal beauty, but they can also be volatile, and it is in this respect that Williams can sound dogged and non- committal.
When the pianist writes of how his 'great musical knowledge and enthusiasm lacked the means to put it into practise until further studies enabled him to achieve a greater command and authority, while admiring his cnadour I can only say that he now needs to take things further and turn a tendency towards retreat into a more outgoing experience.
Finally, competition in early and late Brahms is severe, whether in past, if ever-present glory, from Curzon and Lupu, or more recently from Paul Lewis in opus 116, and in the later masterpieces (coupled with the Concertos) from Igor Levitt.
Bryce Morrison