Valery Afanassiev's essay included with his recordings of Beethoven's Piano Concertos No. 1, No. 2, and No. 4 is well worth reading. Witty and widely read,
Afanassiev's essay opens with Nabokov's remarks on Anna Karenina, then proceeds through parallels, paradoxes, and some sort of psychology to what turns out to be an oddly moving aesthetic apotheosis. The same cannot be said of his performances, which are uniformly slow, thick, heavy, and, worst of all, completely unpersuasive. It is not that
Afanassiev lacks the technique; he is, in fact, quite a virtuoso. It is that
Afanassiev's interpretations undermine his technique:
Afanassiev's attenuated tempos draw attention not to the music but to the interpretation, pointing out interesting developments but not being those developments. One nods along with
Afanassiev's performances, agreeing with this detail of articulation or that shaping of a phrase. One is not, however, engaged by his performances, but instead is distracted by them.
Hubert Soudant and the
Mozarteum-Orchester Salzburg go along with everything
Afanassiev proposes. Oehms' sound is distant but lifelike, more of a landscape than a portrait.