Johannes Brahms: Piano Works – Charles Owen

   in Piano International (Mar, 2019)
Charles Owen offers penetrating insight into Brahms’ late piano music, caught in gloriously burnished sound. There is a bravery to Owen’s playing: he dares to allow the sixth of the Op 76 set to melt into our consciousness after the assertiveness of the close of Op 76/5, and he allows the fragility and silences of Op 116/4 their full due. Fully supported by Avie’s splendid recording, Brahms’ piano music glows. Owen performs miracles of textural lucidity, his tempos perfectly judged; but his highest achievement is to make the listener forget there is a middleman. It is almost as if Brahms speaks directly to us.

There is robust playing, too, in …