Mozart piano sonatas

[Jo498]

How to get the Kraus recording and which one? The Sony box is either ridiculously expensive or at least almost half of what is asked for the newish Kraus complete box. I am not sure if I really want to get the complettissima Kraus.... Then there is an italian best of Mozart box with 30 disc that will involve some duplication but has the complete sonatas with Kraus (and some other elusive things).

[Mandryka]

It's interesting that everyone's focussing on Kraus, but in the old days Kraus had a competitor - Walter Klien. And in some ways his Mozart has more personality, certainly compared with Kraus on Vox.

[Moonfish]

It's interesting that everyone's focussing on Kraus, but in the old days Kraus had a competitor - Walter Klien. And in some ways his Mozart has more personality, certainly compared with Kraus on Vox.

Ah, I almost forgot about him.  I used to listen to Klien quite a bit a few years ago on the vox label. They were definitely mesmerizing.  I actually enjoyed his Schubert as well! I need to retrieve them....
Thanks for bringing him up, Mandryka!

[Ken B]

It's interesting that everyone's focussing on Kraus, but in the old days Kraus had a competitor - Walter Klien. And in some ways his Mozart has more personality, certainly compared with Kraus on Vox.

+1
His Brahms was even better.

[Old Listener]

The first cycle is better. By far, the best mastering of it is in the new Erato set.

i prefer the newer set (sony) to the m&a set.

[Old Listener]

Ah, I almost forgot about him.  I used to listen to Klien quite a bit a few years ago on the vox label. They were definitely mesmerizing.  I actually enjoyed his Schubert as well! I need to retrieve them....
Thanks for bringing him up, Mandryka!

kraus is my 1st choice and klien is my second.

klien and brendel did a fine brahms hungarian dances and dvorak slavonic dances.

[kishnevi]

Let me see if I have thus right

Kraus I , for the Haydn Society

Kraus II

Another release of Kraus II, the one I have and not quite so cheap on Amazon as the previous cover.

Another Kraus II, outrageous price on Amazon

[Cosi bel do]

You have it right.

Kraus I is also in this (in better sound) :



And Kraus II also in this cheap alternative mentioned in the SDCD thread (though the japanese release, first image of your post, has a better sound) :

[Cosi bel do]

As I'm advancing in the sonatas, though, it becomes harder and harder to compare cycles with other, isolated versions. Even the very loveable Kraus can't beat the most delicate, tense, subtle and captivating live versions by Richter in K.309 (Prague, 1968) and Gilels in K.310.

In K.309, apart from Richter, Barenboim again surprized me with his clear, detailed view, full of spirit. For the moment it really seems it is the most overlooked cycle among those I chose for this first "round" of comparison. Behind these two, Kraus, Eschenbach and Uchida are also very good, though very different.

K.310 is really a wonder of course and you never get tired of it. It easily becomes very Beethovenian under many pianists' fingers (even on a fortepiano), then again I tried to have a positive prejudice towards every version's choices (even Gould...). As I said, Gilels is incredible but even more in 1971 than in 1970 (Moscow), and more in Ossiach (filmed performance) than in Salzburg a few days before (is it the one on DG ?). His dense, tense, intense reading is captivating. Even the video direction is inventive (at 4:50, when the camera zooms on the deformed Gilels reflected in the piano lid that reminds of Beethoven's portrait...).
But there's also Lipatti. Very moving in studio, and even more so in his last concert. And Richter who borders perfection, with another powerful conception : in the first movement for instance, Gilels keeps a permanent almost suffocating tension ; Lipatti delivers a humble, precise reading that progressively transformes from a light mozartian exercise to an ultimately disenchanted and dark painting ; while Richter plays the whole thing as a unique and long crescendo, building tension from bar to bar, and translating the 'maestoso' indication as a grand vision of a royal entry (or a funeral cortege, depending on your own interpretation of his interpretation).
I couldn't choose between Gilels and Lipatti and Richter...
A few other versions are also excellent, though not as fascinating as the previous three (four, counting both Lipatti versions). Kraus, Gilels in Salzburg (only the last movement is a little fragile), Ranki (truly excellent but competition is harsh !), Barenboim (truly excellent again, maybe the best studio version after Lipatti, among the ones I heard anyway).

Updated list of favourites :

1 (K.279): Lili Kraus (1954), Daniel Barenboim (1984-1985)
2 (K.280): Lili Kraus (1954), Clara Haskil (1961)
3 (K.281): Lili Kraus (1954), Emil Gilels (1970), Daniel Barenboim (1984-1985)
4 (K.282): Samuil Feinberg (1953), Lili Kraus (1954), Sviatoslav Richter (1989, live), Andreas Staier (2003), Elisso Virsaladze (2013)
5 (K.283): Lili Kraus (1954), Sviatoslav Richter (1966, live), Dezső Ránki (1997, live)
6 (K.284): Daniel Barenboim (1984-1985)
7 (K.309): Sviatoslav Richter (1968, live in Prague), Daniel Barenboim (1984-1985)
8 (K.310): Dinu Lipatti (1950, studio in Geneva + live in Besançon), Emil Gilels (1971, live in Ossiach), Sviatoslav Richter (1989, live in London)

Here is the Gilels video I'm speaking about for K.310.

http://www.youtube.com/v/B7KV6ykHeyI

By the way, I also started again the first sonatas with Ranki & Kocsis. Ranki is excellent and sometimes wonderful ; Kocsis is flat, brutal and generally uninteresting. It's really puzzling that they were paired for a single cycle...

[Todd]

kraus is my 1st choice and klien is my second.

Walter Klien's Mozart is, despite the not so hot sound, one of the very finest sets recorded.  (His Schubert, too.)  Maybe a Brilliant box of all his Vox recordings could be cobbled together. 

[Gurn Blanston]

Walter Klien's Mozart is, despite the not so hot sound, one of the very finest sets recorded.  (His Schubert, too.)  Maybe a Brilliant box of all his Vox recordings could be cobbled together.

It was my very first complete cycle, and still one of my favorites after all this time. The sound never bothered me, back then, when CD's were still new, I thought it was great compared to LP's!

[Ken B]

Walter Klien's Mozart is, despite the not so hot sound, one of the very finest sets recorded.  (His Schubert, too.)  Maybe a Brilliant box of all his Vox recordings could be cobbled together.

A lot of his stuff ia available still in Vox Boxes and cheap om mp3 . I got his complete Mozart solo piano a while ago for $3.

[Mandryka]

For 310, the one I've enjoyed most is Arrau, preferably the final recording, which is full of old man's wisdom. But he played 310 all his life and there are lots of powerful performances from earlier on, not least the live one from Tanglewood.

Schnabel too is outstanding, for once not too tense and nervous in Mozart.

The one Badura Skoda recorded on Astrée is memorable  - and Schnooderwoerd is again a revelation partly because of the fortepiano with uncovered wooden hammers.

And maybe two best of all the recent ones is an unpublished one from Hamelin- a 2010 concert, I can let you have it if you want. And Jean-Bernard Pommier, who is really striking: noble and heroic. Pommier's may well be my favourite 310 ever. 

Maybe sarge will write something about Grimaud's.

One I've never enjoyed is Yudina's. I do enjoy Gould's - how many times did he  record it? Virsaladze didn't seem so interesting in this one.

[Todd]

A lot of his stuff ia available still in Vox Boxes and cheap om mp3 . I got his complete Mozart solo piano a while ago for $3.

I know a lot of his recordings are available - I have his Mozart sonatas, his Schubert, his terribly recorded Brahms - but I want his Schumann and Debussy and Beethoven, etc.  The same recordings keep getting recycled while some others fall into oblivion.  A number of artists are in the same boat.

[Mandryka]

It might be of interest for certain persons if I share my impressions during this comparison, and what my favourite versions are.

So far, I've listened to 4 sonatas, and from 6 (K.279) to 13 (K.282) versions of each sonata (complete sets by Kraus/Discophiles, Gould, Eschenbach, Pires/Denon, Barenboim, Uchida and Würtz). It's a great journey, I mean, hearing this music really makes you feel good, I'd even say it makes you feel a better person in some way, it's quite... extraordinary. But any word is trivial anyway, by comparison.

In K.279, Lili Kraus et Daniel Barenboim are both excellent. Eschenbach is very good too, but less detailed, same problem for Pires by the way.

In K.280, Kraus is ahead, but Haskil is really incredible too, and they both play it like an entirely different piece of music. Kraus' musical discourse, detailed to the point each notes sounds really weighted, contrasts with Haskil's singing piano, always sotto voce, and stylistically impeccable. Richter is excellent too, only the out of tune instrument makes it sound less perfect (but it's incredible how Richter somewhat plays with that defect). Also just behind these, and almost perfect are Pires (simple, modest, somewhat echoing Haskil) and Barenboim (very detailed and subtle, only very slightly technically flawed). But there are almost no bad versions (except Würtz).

In K.281, Kraus is again excellent, and Barenboim is too, both are very convincing and incredibly well detailed and precise. The other great version is Gilels (live in Moscow, 1970), very slow (21 minutes!), with a unique sens of architecture, I mean, Emil is telling us a story here... A lot of tension too, incredible dynamics. And still he never seems to betray the score, to play Gilels instead of Mozart (well I just described Gilels' usual qualities, and they are fully expressed in this recording). Then, Horowitz is among the best too (mannered of course, but so charming, and with such a generous and intimist piano that it is impossible to resist it). Perlemuter, Pires, Uchida, also succeed but with a little less personality, you don't fell the music "happens" as in the 4 previously mentioned.

In K.282, if I had to choose... It would be difficult from the start : Feinberg (1953) and Kraus (1954) both sound perfect. Feinberg more in a neat kind of way, with a unique capacity to hold the sound (the end of 1st movement is crazy for that), and a natural and delicate flow; Kraus more in the usual way she reveals every detail, with a wonderful spirit, a joy to play this music and share it as it is the most evident thing. Then there are many other very nice versions among which Pires is very good (slightly behind the best ones), with an incredibly beautiful first movement, without the artificiality one can find with Eschenbach. Ranki (in concert) is also excellent. But there are two wonderful versions, which are Richter (1989, live) and Virsaladze (2013, live), with somewhat close conceptions by the way. So in this sonata, 4 really great versions...
I also listened to one fortepiano version as I had grown quite curious at that point : Staier. And it was excellent indeed, of course you have to admit from the start that all he does in terms of ornamentation is justified... He really plays it almost as an improvisation and that is very convincing, thanks to a great sense of detail that, in the end, really reminded me of Lili Kraus more than any other artist here... So, I have to add it among the great versions.
Also, Barenboim had really surprised me in the 3 previous sonatas, but here his reading is one of the worst (THE worst being Gould, whose only quality is that his little spit lasts only 7 minutes).

I might not do a sonata-by-sonata commentary like this for all of them, but at least I'll update this list of my favourite versions (I'll also be able to put the 7 full cycles I'm listening to during this comparison in an order of preference):

1 (K.279): Lili Kraus (1954), Daniel Barenboim (1984-1985)
2 (K.280): Lili Kraus (1954), Clara Haskil (1961)
3 (K.281): Lili Kraus (1954), Emil Gilels (1970), Daniel Barenboim (1984-1985)
4 (K.282): Samuil Feinberg (1953), Lili Kraus (1954), Sviatoslav Richter (1989, live), Andreas Staier (2003), Elisso Virsaladze (2013)

In 280 there was a recording released recently by Aldo Ciccolini which you may like at least as much as Kraus and Haskil. This one:



(if you're using spotify note that it's wrongly tagged K333)

The opprobrium heaped on Würtz makes me want to rush to her defence, it's a British trait to back the underdog. But I'm afraid you're right.

[Moonfish]

I know a lot of his recordings are available - I have his Mozart sonatas, his Schubert, his terribly recorded Brahms - but I want his Schumann and Debussy and Beethoven, etc.  The same recordings keep getting recycled while some others fall into oblivion.  A number of artists are in the same boat.

Hmm, how was Klien's Chopin?  Do you know why his recordings became "forgotten"? It seems like a pianist of his stature should have remained in print beyond the Mozart recordings (even those seem to slowly be fading away).

[Todd]

Hmm, how was Klien's Chopin? 

Haven't heard it.  I don't know why his recordings haven't been reissued more widely, aside from the fact that most of them are on Vox, and that label has had its ups and downs over the past few decades.  (Who owns the Vox catalog now?)  Of course, even famous artists fade from view and circulation.

[prémont]

Hmm, how was Klien's Chopin?  Do you know why his recordings became "forgotten"? It seems like a pianist of his stature should have remained in print beyond the Mozart recordings (even those seem to slowly be fading away).

I know his recording of Chopins preludes (used to own them on LP). They were exellent, played like a kind of suite to great effect.

He also made a noble recording of Mozarts sonata in D-major for two pianos with Brendel. And a recording of the named Beethoven sonatas. I have heard him long time ago at a concert playing four Beethoven sonatas. He was obviously nervous and set a too fast pace in the finale of the Appassionata. Else he was as brilliant and expressive as expected.

[prémont]

The opprobrium heaped on Würtz makes me want to rush to her defence, it's a British trait to back the underdog. But I'm afraid you're right.

Since Cosi bel do doesn´t seem to have listened to Würtz during this session, I have listened to her set this week. Her version is the straightforward, heavy-handed, unrefined and ultimately completely uninteresting kind like Brautigam´s  and Eschenbach´s, both of whom I have parted with already.

Interesting to see your words about Pommier. I own his set and find it sympathetic, but I never thought of it as being heroic.

[Todd]

Since Cosi bel do doesn´t seem to have listened to Würtz during this session, I have listened to her set this week. Her version is the straightforward, heavy-handed, unrefined and ultimately completely uninteresting kind like Brautigam´s  and Eschenbach´s, both of whom I have parted with already.

I haven't heard Brautigam, but I have listened to Eschenbach, and unrefined is not a word I would use to describe his playing.  I can understand why people might not like it, but his pianistic talent seems rather more significant than the other two mentioned here.