It sometimes seems as if Boulez has spent a lifetime paying the penalty for having found composition so easy as a young man. The first two piano sonatas, works of his early twenties, are formidably assured in technique and tremendously rich in ideas. Those sections of the Third Sonata released for performance sound cold and tentative by comparison. Or is it that the Third Sonata's much more extreme rejection of tradition is itself a triumph, an authentic modernity that stands out the more prominently for its individualism? Such thoughts are inspired by Idil Biret's absorbing disc. In the first movement of the First Sonata the broader picture proves to be well fleshed out, the argument kept on the move, the young composer's impatience and arrogance palpable in Biret's steely touch and the rather dry but never harsh recorded sound.
The Second Sonata is no less confidently played. Its power suggests why such experiments as No 3 represents could never be a last word for Boulez. This disc isn't the first to bring us the three sonatas together, but Biret's musical persuasiveness, and the up-to-date sound, earn it a strong recommendation.

Biret's musical persuasiveness, and the up-to-date sound, earn this Naxos issue a strong recommendation.