The first solo recital recording for Melbourne-based pianist Josh Hooke (b. 1993) follows his completion of a PhD in Music Performance (2023) at The University of Melbourne. It’s an audacious debut, cutting straight to the chase with two monumental Romantic piano sonatas.

Beethoven’s Op. 106, the Hammerklavier (1818) is widely regarded as his most technically demanding. Its volatile emotional trajectory includes a ferocious finale preceded by an Adagio sostenuto movement that is, for my money, one of the most devastating in the piano repertoire. Hooke takes the Hammerklavier at a fast but not outrageous clip, with an approach that falls somewhere between the surgical brilliance of Pollini and Arrau’s cosmic transcendence. 

Although half the length of the Hammerklavier, Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A minor, D784 (1823) is similarly volatile, veering between thunderous chords, watery trills and exquisite melody. Hooke’s very fine lyricism and technical prowess is also evident here and may be in part a result of his ongoing studies with Imogen Cooper, a truly magnificent Schubert interpreter. To finish:...