If you want every Janácek piano piece extant, significant or slight, in superb, beautifully engineered interpretations at rock-bottom cost, look no further. Häkon Austbo is no stranger to this repertoire (he made an earlier Janácek cycle circa 1980 that’s hard to find), and his keen instincts for the composer’s peculiar kind of “speech/song” style are matched by characterful and loving attention to details. There are too many to savor, but I’ll cite a few felicitous examples. In On an Overgrown Path, for example, Austbo brings out the dialogue between the top melodic line and the tenor counterline in the first piece that others gloss over, and he carefully times No. 2’s halting introduction while bringing greater weight and intensity to the climactic trill.
Many pianists milk the Sonata’s Adagio (“The Death”) in the manner of a Tchaikovskian dirge. Not Austbo. His strict tempo and unswerving adherence to the composer’s dynamic scaling underline the music’s austere, unsettling, and utterly unsentimental message. Also revelatory is the range of color and variety of touch Austbo brings to In the Mist. Reread my first sentence, and order this release at your first opportunity. [11/7/2005]
