After finally having found what I was looking for, I'm not sure that I
really want it.

I've considered Haydn's piano sonatas to represent his best pieces for
aristocratic, mysterious, and elegant music-making.  And, I've also
felt that Alfred Brendel did best at bringing out these qualities in the
sonatas.  Every time I listened to a different artist perform Haydn, I
found deficiences compared to Brendel without any sufficient offsetting
advantages.

I can't say that anymore.  In Teldec's new 2-cd set, Schiff is an excellent
proponent of the Haydn idiom, or to put it more accurately, the Brendel
idiom.  There were many times when it would have been easy to mistake
Schiff for Brendel.  Very infrequently, Schiff gets a little cute and/or
disturbs the music's flow.  Overall, he and Brendel are very much in tune
with one another.  And, although the sound on the Brendel recordings is
very good, the sound for Schiff is a little more crisp and appealing.

Schiff plays most of Haydn's best piano sonatas, so I can't imagine anyone
criticizing the programming.  There's over 140 minutes of superb music
interpretation.

So, I now have Haydn piano sonata recordings that are on the same high
level as Brendel's.  But, the similarites are such that having both
pianists represents interpretive repetition.  If you have Brendel, not
much is gained by having Schiff, and vice versa.

I had a boss once who said, "Be careful what you ask for; you just might
get it." I have that type of feeling at the moment.  But, I do expect with
continued playing to notice greater areas of difference between Schiff and
Brendel in secondary matters.

Don Satz
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