At one level thirty-three-year-old Japanese pianist Kenji Miura offers a standard if richly inclusive programme. But at another, by entitling his disc 'Heimat,' he speaks of his search for an authentic home, of his final residence in Germany and of his ever-creasing love and understanding of German music. As his touching accompanying essay tells he has, both literally and figuratively come home.
In Beethoven's 'appassionata' Sonata you could not hope for a stronger, more direct musical performance. Finely but unobtrusively detailed his opening is sufficiently mysterious and ominous to make the plunging and explosive reply all the more vivid and dramatic. The concluding 'Piu Allegro' comes at you like so much suddenly applied centrifugal force and everything is given with an over-arching continuity. The central 'Andante con moto' is, again, of an uncompromising clarity and both here and in the finale's churning momentum there is never a hint of distraction or idiosyncrasy.
Again, in Schumann's 'Kinderscenen' Miura’ is admirably simple and direct, devoid of heavy pointing or underlining. Could he have been just that bit more important in 'An Important Event' and more ebullient in 'The Knight of the Rocking-Horse’? (though how truly he obeys Schumann's 'mezzo-forte' instruction). There are more personalised readings on record, notably by Cortot and Moiseiwitsch and, idiosyncratically, Horowitz. In our own times there are Lupu and Argerich but even so you will hardly hear playing of a greater musical integrity and transparency.
Finally, Brahms opus 116 Fantasies and a still greater triumph. Whether in the rhetorical blaze of the opening 'Presto energico', in bitter-sweet reflection or in the unsettling near minimalist utterance of No 5 you will only hear playing of a rare honesty. Finely recorded, this is a record of a special distinction.
Bryce Morrison