Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

Started by George, July 21, 2007, 07:27:17 PM

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mabuse

#4560
A slightly off-topic message, but because I think there are Annie Fischer aficionados around here ...
France Musique recently released an archive from 1959 featuring a recital by this pianist:
https://www.francemusique.fr/emissions/les-tresors-de-france-musique/recital-de-la-pianiste-annie-fischer-en-1959-98491

Program :
Georg Frederic Handel
Chaconne in G major, HWV 435

Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Sonata, No.24 in F sharp major, Op. 78

Franz Schubert
4 impromptus, op. 142, D. 935

Béla Bartók
15 Hungarian peasant songs

Radiodiffusion Télévison Française (RTF), January 2, 1959.

(Extra : Franz Liszt, 6th study for piano after Paganini, S. 141)


It's a great document !
I would be curious if anyone is already familiar with this recording (?)

(Francophones should also appreciate the impeccable diction of the presenter of the time  :D )

EDIT:
I see this has already been released :

Scion7

^ She reminds me of Hillary Hawn's grandmother - or something like that!   :blank:
When, a few months before his death, Rachmaninov lamented that he no longer had the "strength and fire" to compose, friends reminded him of the Symphonic Dances, so charged with fire and strength. "Yes," he admitted. "I don't know how that happened. That was probably my last flicker."

mabuse

Quote from: Scion7 on October 12, 2021, 01:00:02 PM
^ She reminds me of Hillary Hawn's grandmother - or something like that!   :blank:

Hmm... There is indeed a little resemblance to Hillary Hahn.

But otherwise young Annie Fischer did not look like her at all:

mabuse


Artalinna (2020)

A very valuable 2cds album by young french/japanese pianist Yumeto Suenaga.
The program combines great works by Beethoven with lighter pieces, as well as few recent works by composer Isabelle Fraisse...
It's rather daring and I like it a lot.

Program :
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
33 Veränderungen über einen Walzer von Diabelli, Op. 120
Große Fuge, Op. 134 (Beethoven'arrangement for Piano Four-Hands of String Quartet Op.133)
Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111
Rondo a capriccio, Op. 129
Bagatelle (Klavierstück), WoO 60
Klavierstück, WoO 61
Bagatelle (Klavierstück), WoO 61a (Hess 56)
Waltz, WoO 84
Bagatelles, Op. 119 (6 excerpts)
Ecossaise, WoO 86
Waltz, WoO 85
Isabelle Fraisse (1949-)
3 Moqueries sur une valse de Diabelli
111 - dialogue avec l'opus 111 de Beethoven

For my taste, the sound recording is a little too close to the instrument, but that doesn't bother me too much.

kapsweiss2021

Some new cycles:

Yingge Yan, winner of Beethoven Piano Competition in Bonn (Completed in 2020)








Adam Golka First Volume in First Hand Records:



He has a Youtube channel with interviews with some piano masters about 32 sonatas
Sonata No.1 with Leon Fleischer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpzq3i1w3tQ&t=168s

Sonata No. 21 "Waldstein" with Alfred Brendel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwfQRvItY4Q

etc.




premont

Quote from: kapsweiss2021 on October 20, 2021, 12:44:35 PM
Some new cycles:

Yingge Yan, winner of Beethoven Piano Competition in Bonn (Completed in 2020)

Adam Golka First Volume in First Hand Records:

He has a Youtube channel with interviews with some piano masters about 32 sonatas
Sonata No.1 with Leon Fleischer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpzq3i1w3tQ&t=168s

Sonata No. 21 "Waldstein" with Alfred Brendel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwfQRvItY4Q

etc.

It has become almost impossible to keep up with all the many new Beethoven piano sonata sets and especially to find out if they are worth hearing / owning. I just ordered Giltburg's set and Buchbinder III myself, but completeness in this field is risky and costly.

BTW your first post. Welcome to our forum, which I hope you will enjoy.  :)
γνῶθι σεαυτόν

Oldnslow


The Giltburg set is superb IMHO. Quite swift tempos (Gulda like?) and a superbly voiced Fazioli piano with great clarity, at least as played by Giltburg. A real find

amw

Quote from: kapsweiss2021 on October 20, 2021, 12:44:35 PM
Some new cycles:

Yingge Yan, winner of Beethoven Piano Competition in Bonn (Completed in 2020)








This is good, btw. Along with Yu Kosuge, who recently became available on streaming for the first time (but has otherwise been out for ages), falls into the category of "good enough for me to listen to the whole thing but not quite good enough to justify adding to my collection".

Giltburg wasn't very interesting to me, nor Golka, nor Heide, etc, but they will definitely appeal to some people. I wouldn't compare Giltburg to Gulda, since Gulda's playing is much more straightforward and uninterpreted, whereas Giltburg struck me as somewhat mannered; would compare him more to someone like Kawamura (who I like) or Gould (who is good in a few sonatas but terrible in the majority).

staxomega

#4568
I listened to the last volume from Giltburg, the first two movements of 109 were very strange but I liked the rest of that volume, actually closing movement of 109 had me listening quite intently. After finishing I thought that movement was played much slower than it sounded but actual timing was not that eccentric; one of my favorites comes in at a bit over 14 minutes. I'll probably listen to the full cycle to see if it's worth buying. Sadly the Hammerklavier timings don't look that interesting.

Plus one to what the other poster said on the Fazioli, the tone is gorgeous.

Brian

Chose a short sonata at random from Giltburg and chose very poorly - No. 9 (Op. 14 No. 1), which it turns out he plays with glacial slowness. Painfully dull. Going to put on Yusuke Kikuchi as soon as the finale ends to wash the unpleasant flavor out. The piano sounds fine but the recording is so close-up and cramped that I unfortunately can't get the sense of color which everyone else is describing.

amw

I picked Op. 109 for a comparison of Giltburg, Yan, Gulda (Amadeo), Badura-Skoda (Naïve Astrée), Crawford, in that order. My priors also had this as a preference order from least favoured to most but I was curious as to what a fresh listen would do.

Giltburg I found somewhat dull, slow, soft-edged and with occasional disruptive agogics. Maybe I just don't like Faziolis. Yan was much better, more straightforward but still with the basic elements of fantasy and dissociation that I associate with this sonata. Still a bit slow, but it didn't disturb me as much. Gulda was again an improvement, playing with actual power and passion where called for by the score; he also was slower than I'd remembered, as he actually downplays the dissociative and fantasy elements and attempts to weld the sonata into a cohesive dramatic arc, which tends to involve flattening the tempo relations somewhat. Badura-Skoda was the best of all, an intense (somewhat fast) reading that made all the others sound undercooked by comparison, but not much of a surprise there since along with Tipo/Crawford it's one of the great performances. Crawford was interesting here, because the interpretation is in many ways similar to Yan in particular but is totally transformed in effect by the nature of the instrument she uses. I think those two, or Crawford/Giltburg, would make in and of themselves good A:Bs for the interested. I usually like Crawford even more than PBS, and while I wasn't totally feeling it for most of the time today, her final variation is always transformative and ecstatic in emotional effect, in a way no one else in this particular mini-comparison appeared to aim at.

Anyway, I guess they're all pretty good, but my preference order was justified

Todd

Quote from: kapsweiss2021 on October 20, 2021, 12:44:35 PM
Yingge Yan, winner of Beethoven Piano Competition in Bonn (Completed in 2020)








Hmm.  Was aware of cycle, was not aware it was complete.  Perhaps I should buy, allowing a full Giltburg-Yan comp.
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People would rather believe than know - E.O. Wilson

Propaganda death ensemble - Tom Araya

staxomega

#4572
Quote from: Brian on October 22, 2021, 11:06:57 AM
Chose a short sonata at random from Giltburg and chose very poorly - No. 9 (Op. 14 No. 1), which it turns out he plays with glacial slowness. Painfully dull. Going to put on Yusuke Kikuchi as soon as the finale ends to wash the unpleasant flavor out. The piano sounds fine but the recording is so close-up and cramped that I unfortunately can't get the sense of color which everyone else is describing.

You weren't kidding, it sounds like he takes 10 minutes in the opening movement. I chose HJ Lim to wash it out ;D (since this humor might not translate well, I'm completely joking)

Brian

Quote from: hvbias on October 22, 2021, 05:41:55 PM
You weren't kidding, it sounds like he takes 10 minutes in the opening movement. I chose HJ Lim to wash it out ;D (since this humor might not translate well, I'm completely joking)
Oh, I get the humor  ;D

Jo498

What are favorites in op.14#2 (I piece I like much more than #1)? It's one of the few Beethoven pieces where I prefer a rather slowish lyrical indulgent first movement. That makes e.g. Richter a bit too fast/intense. Gilels who is probably the slowest I have is unfortunately way too slow in the second movement (basically ignoring the alla breve). A really dark horse I quite liked is Cziffra (EMI introuvables or big box).
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

staxomega

Quote from: Jo498 on October 23, 2021, 12:04:54 AM
What are favorites in op.14#2 (I piece I like much more than #1)? It's one of the few Beethoven pieces where I prefer a rather slowish lyrical indulgent first movement. That makes e.g. Richter a bit too fast/intense. Gilels who is probably the slowest I have is unfortunately way too slow in the second movement (basically ignoring the alla breve). A really dark horse I quite liked is Cziffra (EMI introuvables or big box).

Won't meet your requirement for slow first movement or probably the taste of most people, this is one of my favorites:

https://www.youtube.com/v/qQhWuoPWWwY

lordlance

I am sure there are approximately 50 threads dedicated to Beethoven PS recs but I come with different needs:
1) I actually find most instrumental and chamber music intolerable because they can often lack the electricity orchestral music can generate (I am sure people will disagree with that.) Sure in piano transcendental etudes is an hour long marathon of manic music but I have often found piano music sorely lacking in the ferocity that orchestral music can bring (for example Chopin - Mazurkas most notably - and even my beloved Liszt in Vallee d'obermann which bored me to death.)
2) Keeping 1 in mind I am looking for a cycle that's high-octane and explosive in energy and not necessarily "subtle" for I don't think I would appreciate those attributes.

Thank you.
If you are interested in listening to orchestrations of solo/chamber music, you might be interested in this thread.
Also looking for recommendations on neglected conductors thread.

Brian

The easy answer would be HJ Lim, who is very fast, totally unsubtle, frequently very loud, but also rather sloppy (wrong notes) and tasteless. I know Gulda has a better reputation as a member of the loud and fast school of playing but I don't know his cycle too well.

Mandryka

#4578
Quote from: lordlance on December 11, 2021, 01:11:29 PM
I am sure there are approximately 50 threads dedicated to Beethoven PS recs but I come with different needs:
1) I actually find most instrumental and chamber music intolerable because they can often lack the electricity orchestral music can generate (I am sure people will disagree with that.) Sure in piano transcendental etudes is an hour long marathon of manic music but I have often found piano music sorely lacking in the ferocity that orchestral music can bring (for example Chopin - Mazurkas most notably - and even my beloved Liszt in Vallee d'obermann which bored me to death.)
2) Keeping 1 in mind I am looking for a cycle that's high-octane and explosive in energy and not necessarily "subtle" for I don't think I would appreciate those attributes.

Thank you.

Sviatoslav Richter.  Maria Yudina. Stephen Kovacevich. Annie Fischer. Maurizio Pollini. Emil Gilels (not on DG). Wilhelm Backhaus.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

lordlance

Quote from: Mandryka on December 12, 2021, 11:09:17 AM
Sviatoslav Richter.  Stephen Kovacevich. Annie Fischer. Maurizio Pollini.

Any specific Richter recordings?
If you are interested in listening to orchestrations of solo/chamber music, you might be interested in this thread.
Also looking for recommendations on neglected conductors thread.