Maria Grinberg Plays Beethoven

[Todd]

Facing an ever decreasing population of unheard complete cycles, I decided to finally try Maria Grinberg's cycle because, well, just because.  HMV Japan has it an affordable price, even with a weak dollar.  I don't recall ever having read an especially glowing review of her recordings (though the HMV star rankings put her at five of five), and have stumbled across some less favorable ones.  I can sort of hear why there have been some less favorable reviews. 

The problem has mostly to do with the sound.  Is the sound quality just poor, Soviet era recording technology exposed, or do the recordings accurately portray what Ms Grinberg sounded like?  Louder passages sound metallic and clangy.  Quieter passages are less troublesome, but the result doesn't make me want to hear Ms Grinberg's Debussy.

Anyway, after one adjusts to the sound, one must confront what is, for me, a mixed cycle.  The first four sonatas are all heavy and ponderous, with plodding slow movements and ham-fisted fast movements.   The Op 10 sonatas strike me as more successful, with enough drive (the first), pep (the second), and drama (the third) to be enjoyable.  But then Op 13 comes along and that metallic, clangy sound comes to the fore, especially in the first movement.  It's a flurry of metal, and sounds uncontrolled.  It's not terrible, but it ain't my cup of tea.  Then follows a series of at least moderately successful sonatas right up to the brink of the late works.  The Op 31 trio come off pretty well, even if the first and third don't quite have a light enough touch where I like a lighter touch.  The Op 57 displays some of the same traits that Op 13 does, and it's a bit heavy and plodding, but it's okay. 

But then the later sonatas disappoint.  Starting with Op 81a, things take a turn for the worse.  Grinberg never evokes anything approaching late LvB goodness, at least for me.  Throw in some more clangy, out of control playing in the Hammerklavier (no surprise, really), and some oddly phrased and decidedly middle period sounding playing in the last three sonatas, and there's not a lot to love.  Nothing is terrible, mind you, but I can think of probably three dozen or more versions of each sonata I prefer. 

So a less than successful, but also not entirely disappointing cycle.  The early and late works aren't to my taste, but many of the middle works are pretty good.  The sound, again, isn't the most pleasing, but it's easily adjusted to.  So I'll say it's a so-so cycle, and one probably of more interest to people who just want to hear more and more and more Beethoven.

[Bunny]

Thanks for the review, Todd.  Bad sound quality and an uneven performance might explain why the cycle has lingered in obscurity. 

[Holden]

Thanks for the review, Todd.  Bad sound quality and an uneven performance might explain why the cycle has lingered in obscurity.

I sampled a variety of the Grinberg via Russian DVD and was left unimpressed. I just got the  feeling that Grinberg knew very little about playing Beethoven. Your review, Todd, backs up my initial impressions.

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

I picked up a disk of her playing Brahms a couple years ago when I was in Russia, and I had similar impressions. I think she was known as a Brahms specialist, but I found the performances difficult to enjoy. She didn't seem to have much feeling for the music. Her Shostakovitch preludes and fugues are supposedly quite good--don't know whether they have been (re)issued.

[Mandryka]

The Op 57 displays some of the same traits that Op 13 does, and it's a bit heavy and plodding, but it's okay. 

I think she creates great tension in the final movement of Op 57, even though her tempo is not particularly fast. The interest comes more from the relationship between the notes,  rather than from a headlong rush.

In this movement she reminds me of Levy and Sofronitsky  -- and she is the polar opposite of Richter and Rubinstein.

I would have equally positive things to say about her way with the last two movements of the Waldstein. 

[matti]

and she is the polar opposite of Richter and Rubinstein.

Interesting that you'd tie those two that closely together, polar opposites in so many ways.

[Mandryka]

Interesting that you'd tie those two that closely together, polar opposites in so many ways.

Maybe.

It's just that they both try to create the impression of  turbulence and anxiety  in the final movement of the Appassionata by playing the whole movement very fast. It's not only that that approach creates all sorts of problems in the coda (which is marked presto.) It's also that the speed stops you hearing all the music.

I'm thinking of Rubinstein's 1945 recording, and Richter's from 9 June 1960 (Melodyia)

[Holden]

Maybe.

It's just that they both try to create the impression of  turbulence and anxiety  in the final movement of the Appassionata by playing the whole movement very fast. It's not only that that approach creates all sorts of problems in the coda (which is marked presto.) It's also that the speed stops you hearing all the music.

I'm thinking of Rubinstein's 1945 recording, and Richter's from 9 June 1960 (Melodyia)

Both are very passionate performances!

[Mandryka]

Both are very passionate performances!

Few Opus 57s seem uniformly good. I love Richter in the first movement and I don't care for the way he treats the final movement. I think Levy is astoundingly excellently uniquely brilliant in the last movement, but less so in the other two. Levy made me completely rethink this sonata.

Grinberg is more uniformly satisfactory IMO -- though she never gets to the heights of some others.

If I had to choose just one Appassionata -- it would be Sofronitsky's. But in his best one (the 1952 Moscow Conservatoire one) the sound is wack.

Shame Yudina didn't record it.