The Four Year Olympian

This first of the two sets contains four indisputable masterpieces. In the stormy D minor Concerto K. 466, Brendel springs a mild surprise by playing his own cadenzas rather than Beethoven's, the ones most often used. I must confess to preferring Beethoven's unstylish but dramatic and imaginative cadenza to the first movement, but otherwise the performance is beyond reproach. Brendel adds some discreet and entirely appropriate ornamentation to the many repetitions of the second movement's main theme. The Olympian C major K. 467, with its incomparably beautiful slow movement, also receives some much-needed decoration: here the cadenzas are by Radu Lupu and are a bit quirkier than necessary.