Sibelius: Etude, Op. 76/2 (Mustonen, Yuja, Gimse, Matsuev)

The second movement from Sibelius' Op. 76 Thirteen Pieces for Piano. 0:00 - Olli Mustonen: Lively but still delicate and not at all overbearing. The rubato is subtle but very effective (e.g. the Bezier-like eases at 0:14, 0:24, 0:32, 0:47, and 0:53–0:58) and the left hand is consistently supple and never draws attention from the melody. 1:11 - Yuja Wang: It's difficult to not immediately fall in love with this more "romantic" interpretation—the way she makes the line at 1:27–1:34 sing, and the jazzy accents on the syncopation at 1:42 and 1:47. 2:23 - Håvard Gimse: Has probably the best interpretation of the entire Op. 76 set, so it felt only right to include him here as well. I love the very clear dichotomy between dance-like and song-like (you can hear this all throughout, but to give one example, the way the repeated phrase in 2:49–2:56 is played more lyrically the second time). 3:33 - Denis Matsuev: Straight-forward, but effective. The slower, more laid-back tempo is everything.