Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

[Wakefield]

How strange....  According to the booklet published with the set I have, all of the recordings are copyrighted in '80-'82, except for op 14:1 in 1987.

Maybe your set only contains the piano sonatas and not the remaining works for solo piano? This info appears at JPC: http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Ludwig-van-Beethoven-1770-1827-S%E4mtliche-Klavierwerke/hnum/2871798, so I haven't personally checked it out.

[Mandryka]

I am currently making my  <>30th traversal of The 32 with Badura-Skoda. I know it's not everyone's favorite, but it sure is mine!  0:)

I agree that there are some valuable things in the BS Astree set. Actually your post prompted me to listen to Op 10/3 which I liked and which, at least emotionally, reminded me a bit of Pollini -- you know, both very serious and muscular, not very "spiritual" or "tragic" and at times, a bit angry sounding. That made it a specially interesting record for me.

Has anyone heard the early BS records of Beethoven sonatas, the ones he recorded for Westminster? I don't think they're the same as the Astree ones. If I'm right about that, were  the Westmonsters on pianoforte too? Did his ideas about the music change much between the earlier and later records? Is there a digital transfer -- CD or download?

[kishnevi]

Has anyone heard the early BS records of Beethoven sonatas, the ones he recorded for Westminster? I don't think they're the same as the Astree ones. If I'm right about that, were  the Westmonsters on pianoforte too? Did his ideas about the music change much between the earlier and later records? Is there a digital transfer -- CD or download?

Was that a typo or a hint of your opinion of those performances?

[Gurn Blanston]

I agree that there are some valuable things in the BS Astree set. Actually your post prompted me to listen to Op 10/3 which I liked and which, at least emotionally, reminded me a bit of Pollini -- you know, both very serious and muscular, not very "spiritual" or "tragic" and at times, a bit angry sounding. That made it a specially interesting record for me.

Has anyone heard the early BS records of Beethoven sonatas, the ones he recorded for Westminster? I don't think they're the same as the Astree ones. If I'm right about that, were  the Westmonsters on pianoforte too? Did his ideas about the music change much between the earlier and later records? Is there a digital transfer -- CD or download?

I haven't heard any other of his Beethoven. Todd reviewed another set, and it is newer rather than older, performed on an Bösendorfer Imperial.

I don't know much about inferring moods or emotions from recordings. B-S reputedly plays in a classic Viennese style, and the tempi he keeps throughout are simply perfect to my ears, not to mention that I greatly prefer the sound of a fortepiano-pianoforte in Classical Era music. IMO, he is unmatched in Classical Viennese repertoire, even by other players who I like a lot. 

[Mandryka]

Was that a typo or a hint of your opinion of those performances?

Lapsus révélateur.

[Mandryka]

I haven't heard any other of his Beethoven. Todd reviewed another set, and it is newer rather than older, performed on an Bösendorfer Imperial.

I don't know much about inferring moods or emotions from recordings. B-S reputedly plays in a classic Viennese style, and the tempi he keeps throughout are simply perfect to my ears, not to mention that I greatly prefer the sound of a fortepiano-pianoforte in Classical Era music. IMO, he is unmatched in Classical Viennese repertoire, even by other players who I like a lot. 

Is that because you don't find that music speaks emotionally to you, or because you find that aspect of a performance secondary or what?

[Gurn Blanston]

Is that because you don't find that music speaks emotionally to you, or because you find that aspect of a performance secondary or what?

Don't really know, actually. It may not be the performance, it may be the music itself. I've never bought into the 'tragically sad' or 'ebulliently joyous' that I read about. Usually I never even think about that until someone mentions it, and then, of course, it's too late; all I think about at that point is that it was good/bad/ugly music. Mozart's g minor string quintet is a case in point. Some of the descriptions that I've read about it are so not what I thought that I'm apparently in a different universe. So, to choose one of your possibilities then, I would say "secondary"...   

[Wakefield]

I haven't heard any other of his Beethoven. Todd reviewed another set, and it is newer rather than older, performed on an Bösendorfer Imperial.

The newer is the Naïve set, recorded in the 90s; the Gramola set was recorded in 1969 or 1970.

I totally agree with the rest of your post. 

[Gurn Blanston]

The newer is the Naïve set, recorded in the 90s; the Gramola set was recorded in 1969 or 1970.

I totally agree with the rest of your post. 

Ah, I didn't realize that. Is the Gramola a reprint of the Westminster, as Mandryka was asking?  I saw that set when it came out and thought it was newer than the Astrée/Auvidis. 

[Wakefield]

Ah, I didn't realize that. Is the Gramola a reprint of the Westminster, as Mandryka was asking?  I saw that set when it came out and thought it was newer than the Astrée/Auvidis. 

I don't know, Gurn. I just recall (I hope) the dates because some time ago, I was very interested in the Gramola set.

Anyway, I agree with your appreciation on the Astrée cycle: those fortepianos are a sort of lysergic journey of colors and voices (well, at least so I guess regarding the "lysergic" part  ).

[Mandryka]

I'll just mentiion  that all this talk of fortepianos got me zapping around spotify and I found what is, I think, a really nice and very distinctive performance of op 111 by Tom Beghin.

It's part of a Claves box of sonatas by different pianists. I noticed a good op109 in the box by Bilson too. This is something worth exploring I think, for spotify people.

[Wakefield]

Review of the Gramola set on ClassicsToday:

Paul Badura-Skoda and the Beethoven sonatas have had a long discographical relationship since the 1950s. The pianist first recorded five "name" sonatas for Westminster (the "Moonlight", Pathetique", Appassionata", "Pastoral", and "Tempest"). He later undertook all 32 sonatas for an LP release brought out in the U.S. by the Musical Heritage Society to tie in with Beethoven's 1970 bicentenary. More recently, he remade the cycle for Astrée, using period instruments. According to Badura-Skoda's American management, the present 1969/70 recordings remained unedited and unreleased until now. In the main, they were worth the wait.

http://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-8948/

[Gurn Blanston]

I don't know, Gurn. I just recall (I hope) the dates because some time ago, I was very interested in the Gramola set.

Anyway, I agree with your appreciation on the Astrée cycle: those fortepianos are a sort of lysergic journey of colors and voices (well, at least so I guess regarding the "lysergic" part  ).

Nothing wrong with lysergic, a perfectly acceptable word.    One of my favorite memories of the '60's, in fact.

I agree, the variety of tonal shadings, not only from the different instruments but from different touches on the same instrument, make the pianoforte/fortepiano sound totally unique. I'm tripping on it even right now!  0:)

[Gurn Blanston]

Review of the Gramola set on ClassicsToday:

http://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-8948/

Aha! So it IS the same set. And from his prime too. Well, nicely restored pianofortes were thin on the ground in 1969. At least it was an Imperial.

[Gurn Blanston]

I'll just mentiion  that all this talk of fortepianos got me zapping around spotify and I found what is, I think, a really nice and very distinctive performance of op 111 by Tom Beghin.

It's part of a Claves box of sonatas by different pianists. I noticed a good op109 in the box by Bilson too. This is something worth exploring I think, for spotify people.

Always wanted to hear that box. Never in the right place at the right time.

[Wakefield]

Nothing wrong with lysergic, a perfectly acceptable word.    One of my favorite memories of the '60's, in fact.

Off-topic: Something really bad happened to the world in the 70s. Last Wednesday (holiday here in Chile), I watched three movies in one go (a thing that I hadn't done in decades) and all of them were movies from the 60s: My Geisha, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes & Girls, Girls, Girls, and, well, all seemed so natural and untroubled, and all those girls so fantastically dressed and incredibly hot... I was a teenager in the second half of the 80s, but still so I'm nostalgic of the 60s. 

[North Star]

Off-topic: Something really bad happened to the world in the 70s.  ... I was a teenager in the second half of the 80s

[Wakefield]

Well, I was born in 1970, the last year of the decade of the sixties. 

[Gurn Blanston]

Off-topic: Something really bad happened to the world in the 70s. Last Wednesday (holiday here in Chile), I watched three movies in one go (a thing that I hadn't done in decades) and all of them were movies from the 60s: My Geisha, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes & Girls, Girls, Girls, and, well, all seemed so natural and untroubled, and all those girls so fantastically dressed and incredibly hot... I was a teenager in the second half of the 80s, but still so I'm nostalgic of the 60s. 

I graduated from High School in 1969, so that is my generation so to speak. People today simply don't realize how different things are/were. Not just youngsters who didn't live through it, but oldsters who haven't looked out their windows in a long time. I meet both kinds regularly. It was sort of nice being naive and isolated a little bit from the raw edge of reality.   So it goes.

[DavidRoss]

Nothing wrong with lysergic, a perfectly acceptable word.    One of my favorite memories of the '60's, in fact.

I agree, the variety of tonal shadings, not only from the different instruments but from different touches on the same instrument, make the pianoforte/fortepiano sound totally unique. I'm tripping on it even right now!  0:)

You merry prankster, you!

Off-topic: Something really bad happened to the world in the 70s.

From the perspective of one well into his second half-century, it got worse in the '80s, worse again in the '90s and '00s, and the '10s aren't looking likely to reverse the trend. But who gives a rat's netherquarters about the human spiritual condition nowadays--we've got iPhones!