<<<  <<  -- 2 --  Julian Jacobson    CLARITY AND HONESTY

The hands and mind that could guide us securely through this benign maelstrom were certainly well adapted to conveying the very different, yet analogously powerful, message of Beethoven's late A flat Sonata. Here Troup's long experience, and the energetic and enquiring mind that has led him to play a significant part in many aspects of musical life, told in a performance that eschewed all unnecessary expression and concentrated on the structure and inner vision of the music.

I have heard warmer, in a sense more 'musicianly' performances of the first movement, but this was not part of Troup's purpose, which was to lay Beethoven's vision before us with absolute clarity and honesty. Any untidiness in the Scherzo was offset by a brilliantly driving and comical Trio. Yet the performance's centre of gravity was in the last movement, as it surely must be in any interpretation of late Beethoven. That extraordinary fusion of recitative, arioso and fugue received a performance which unfolded inevitably right up to the final section where Beethoven seems to throw off all his shackles. Within this Troup could perhaps have allowed himself still more variety of dynamic and colour; the second, G minor arioso (marked 'exhausted' by Beethoven) could have been more withdrawn, and the two fugal sections more contrasted, without impairing the movement's cohesion. But these are small, personal quibbles in a recital that made one wish to hear Troup again -- soon, often, and in a wide variety of repertoire.