Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5; Piano Sonata No. 28.(Sound recording review)

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5; Piano Sonata No. 28. Helene Grimaud, piano; Vladimir Jurowski, Dresden Staatskapelle. DG B0009840-02.

The booklet note describes Ms. Grimaud as "among the most sagacious of today's keyboard artists- a philosopher at the concert grand." It goes on to say that her interpretation of the Beethoven Fifth Piano Concerto is "a journey of the soul through the vales of worldly despair and over the peaks of ideologies. A musical journey to a world viewed from a melancholic interior- and a journey in time from Beethoven's world to ours." She herself says of the Concerto that it is a work of "philosophy cast in music, a philosophy that sets out to neutralize human contradictions."

Phew! That's a lot for any piece of music to mean and a lot for any musician to convey. Does Ms. Grimaud live up to the rather overwrought prose? Well, she certainly plays with dazzling virtuosity. She must have ten fingers on each hand. And there is no denying that her performance of the Concerto is thrilling in the extreme. But I also admit to finding ...