Markus Groh's supreme control of the instrument and sensitivity regarding timbre and texture enable him convincingly to stretch the Op 117 No 1 Intermezzo's middle section to its arguable breaking-point. The same goes for his full-throated, polyphonically aware conceptions of the A major and G minor Capriccios from Op 116. The Intermezzi, Op 118 No 6 and Op 119 No 1, elicit brooding, weighty interpretations that still manage to convey shape and sustaining power. Notable too are Groh's slightly agitated take on Op 117 No 3's con moto directive, with more varied legato articulation than one commonly hears. The pianist's ample tone and deft delineation of the Op 116 No 7 Capriccio's gnarly textures are all the more impressive once you realise how discreetly he employs the sustain pedal. To be certain, some selections meet with less success: for example, the little C major Intermezzo, Op 119 No 3 (made famous by Myra Hess), is voiced to perfection yet never takes wing; nor does the cycle's closing Rhapsody break out from Groh's four-square shell.
Still, for a single-disc release that includes all four 'late' Brahms piano works, Groh more than holds his own alongside moreseasoned performances.
The dryish room ambience characterising Avie's engineering via conventional twochannel and headphone playback appreciably opens up when experienced in surround-sound.

Late Brahms that demonstrates the pianist's supreme control and sensitivity.

Sometimes in the more fiery pieces, such as the capriccios of Op 116, Groh seems limited in his colour range. Yet it is the poetic touch that matters here, and he clearly possesses that in spades, as the opening piece of Op 117, the beautifully gauged dying cadence of Op 116, No 6, the rich colours of Op 118, No 2, and the direct, unhurried simplicity of the first piece of Op 119 all testify.

There's much to admire in Groh's playing of these four sets...especially the beautifully judged palette of keyboard colours with which he shades these exquisite pieces. At times the quiet inwardness of the music escapes him - he's more at home, for instance, with the comparative extroversion of the Rhapsodie with which Op 119 ends, than with the delicately pearled intermezzo with which the set opens - and not everything in these pieces unfolds with the naturalness and expressive breadth that they ideally need. But Groh's playing has a musicality and honesty.