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The Music Room => Great Recordings and Reviews => Topic started by: Karafan on August 27, 2024, 05:29:51 AM

Title: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Karafan on August 27, 2024, 05:29:51 AM
In the last few years I have turned to the Beethoven piano sonatas increasingly, and my love for them has grown.

I'd be fascinated to hear how your association with them began, whether it has waxed and waned over the years, what recordings have grown on you and which have been treasurable from your early days?

I started off with the Kempff stereo box, heard talk of his mono outing and so got those, too, and down the rabbit-hole I duly plunged.  (However, I have yet to hear, or ever see for sale, the Lucchesini cycle!).

Many boxsets and individual discs later, the depth of my passion for these has grown (Buchbinder III and Giltburg being the most recent acquisitions), but I'd really like to hear how it began for you...
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: George on August 27, 2024, 05:59:58 AM
I started with a love of the Moonlight sonata, which led me to the DG Originals Kempff CD of the name sonatas, then the DG Originals 2CD of him playing the late sonatas.

Ill share more later when I am at a keyboard

Nice idea for a thread!
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Cato on August 27, 2024, 06:00:32 AM
Quote from: Karafan on August 27, 2024, 05:29:51 AMIn the last few years I have turned to the Beethoven piano sonatas increasingly, and my love for them has grown.

I'd be fascinated to hear how your association with them began, whether it has waxed and waned over the years, what recordings have grown on you and which have been treasurable from your early days?

I started off with the Kempff stereo box, heard talk of his mono outing and so got those, too, and down the rabbit-hole I duly plunged.  (However, I have yet to hear, or ever see for sale, the Lucchesini cycle!).

Many boxsets and individual discs later, the depth of my passion for these has grown (Buchbinder III and Giltburg being the most recent acquisitions), but I'd really like to hear how it began for you...


Greetings!

When I was in grade school in the 1950's and teaching myself music, I listened to a few of the middle sonatas with the scores (e.g. Waldstein, Appassionata).

Later in college, I read Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, wherein a marvelously spiritual description of the Opus 111 is given.

So, I went to the library and selected a LONDON recording of Wilhelm Backhaus performing the last two sonatas.

The Opus 111 entranced me, as if Thomas Mann somehow knew of my reaction and described it in his novel, and so I began going through all of the sonatas.

However, over 3 decades went past until I returned to them again, again with Backhaus in charge of the keyboard.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: San Antone on August 27, 2024, 06:30:42 AM
I first came into contact with the Beethoven piano sonatas as a teenage student of piano.  I had been told by my teacher that we would first study Bach, Inventions, the the Well-Tempered Clavier, and graduating finally to Beethoven piano sonatas.  I still have the thick paperback scores.

However, I never made it to Beethoven.  The knowledge was placed in my head, something I think my teacher had said, "Bach is the Old Testament and Beethoven the New."

I am still a great fan of both.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Leo K. on August 27, 2024, 06:42:51 AM
My very first cycle was the Yves Nat cycle (on EMI) in 1989. I bought it on a whim in a mall. I bought the scores not long after that so I can follow along. Over the years I continued to listen and be amazed by this unique catalogue of pianoforte literature. I used to listen to various albums rather than cycles. It is only the last few years I have started collecting cycles. These works are only growing on me as I age. My favorite cycle right now is the Schiff cycle on ECM.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Karafan on August 27, 2024, 06:45:43 AM
Quote from: San Antone on August 27, 2024, 06:30:42 AMI first came into contact with the Beethoven piano sonatas as a teenage student of piano.  I had been told by my teacher that we would first study Bach, Inventions, the the Well-Tempered Clavier, and graduating finally to Beethoven piano sonatas.  I still have the thick paperback scores.

However, I never made it to Beethoven.  The knowledge was placed in my head, something I think my teacher had said, "Bach is the Old Testament and Beethoven the New."

I am still a great fan of both.
your teacher was quoting Hans von Bülow, if I remember correctly. Thanks for your comments.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Mandryka on August 27, 2024, 07:00:46 AM
When I was at school I discovered Op 111 through Schnabel's EMI recording. I could tell it was special music, but never really listened to his other piano sonatas. A few years later I heard a friend playing Gilels' recording of the Pastoral sonata, and I remember thinking it was fun, and I remember my mother enjoying Schnabel's Waldstein (I never got on with her so that was enough to put me off that recording - but I was forced to hear it more often than I wanted.)

After that, it was op 2/1 by Richter, with bad sound, which caught my attention.

Over the years I've heard them all I suppose, either in concert or on record or both. The first complete set I bought was Annie Fischer's - I was disappointed by quite a lot of it - too forceful for me at the time.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Jo498 on August 27, 2024, 07:14:30 AM
A prerecorded cassette tape on a cheapo label when I was about 15. It was Pathetique, Moonlight, Appassionata played by Bulgarian/French? pianist Yuri Boukoff, or at least I think it was all by him, could have been different pianists but probably a tape based on that LP, the MC looked a bit different, though, I think.

(https://i.discogs.com/ho9C2lfCOpK36aUFoyQFmx6IyakW2HbgR7lT4yQpz3I/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:597/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEwMjMw/MDY0LTE2NDAwMDY4/MjQtOTIxOS5qcGVn.jpeg)

Among the first 3 CDs I bought a year or so later were Kempff's recording of op. 106 and 31/2 as well as op.111 as filler for the 5th concerto. I also taped a few more sonatas from the radio or a bit later from friend's CDs.
But I was not that fond of or interested in solo piano music in my first few years of listening to classical music, preferring orchestral and chamber music. Nevertheless I bought sonatas 16-32 in a clothbound Peters pocket score in East Berlin 1989 (a few months before the Wall fell, one had to exchange a certain amount of money and music scores and maths textbooks were basically the only thing worth purchasing in East Germany...)

So it was about 8 years later, by then ca. 1996 that I got single discs of more Beethoven sonatas, I am not even sure about all the details, one was op.10 with Goode, also the DG originals reissue of Pollini's recording of the Late sonatas.

When, probably in 1997 the almost complete Gilels DG recordings were issued in that blue box inexpensively (for that time and highly regarded recordings) I bought this. But Gilels often rather slow and always weighty interpretations was not the best choice for getting to know the (mostly early) sonatas I had not heard yet. Another 2 years later, I think, in 1998 or 99 the Gulda (Amadeo, with discs in single jewelcases, basically no notes, and each sonata as one track) was on sale even more cheaply than the Gilels had been, I snapped it up and this was revelatory in those earlyish sonatas I had found a bit boring with Gilels.
Sure, with more familiarity I could later also appreciate the more weighty Gilels interpretations.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Todd on August 27, 2024, 07:22:18 AM
Back when I got into classical music, I started in on an expanded list of the great composers, and Beethoven's music as a whole immediately clicked.  When it came to piano sonatas, I picked up a variety of single disc recordings of mixed and matched sonatas by big name pianists on major labels and liked what I heard.  My first complete cycle was John O'Conor's, and I liked that, too.  I can't remember which purchased cycle it was exactly, though it was one of the first four or five I ended up with, but I picked up and was gifted Annie Fischer's cycle in nine volumes.  It set the pace starting then. 

For a while I was content with seven or eight cycles and continued to gobble up recordings of other repertoire.  I also started frequenting online classical music fora, and I was struck by the number of different opinions as to what constituted the best cycle and best interpretations.  Obviously, there is no objective best interpretation or interpreter and cannot be, but so many posters who posted with so much (faux) authority on the matter claimed special knowledge because they had heard this or that rare cycle, while others dismissed the need to hear this or that rare cycle because they has already heard <insert ultimate interpreter name here>.  How could it be otherwise, because what is the internet if not a collection of self-appointed authorities on every subject imaginable?

I figured that since I liked the music enough that I might as well make an effort to hear, to the extent practically possible, all available cycles so that I could assess them for myself.  Then I could determine the best cycle – to my tastes.  (Recent posts on this forum demonstrate conclusively that a good number of people are literally incapable of understanding that.)  I started that lifetime project in around 2005.  I have now amassed and listened to 129 complete or meant to be complete cycles.  There's more to hear even now.  There is so much pure bullshit online about what constitutes the best cycle even now, using some non-existent, pseudo-Platonic or some other pseudo-intellectual conception of the ideal, that the only way to actually know what could be among the best is to actually listen.  Most people don't do that, of course, nor do they have to.  The interpretive possibilities are vast, and the listening rewards are, too.  I have arrived at the following irrefutable truth: it is a fact that there are innumerable valid ways* to perform the New Testament; it is an opinion that there is or can be an objectively best way.

I still happily listen to new one-off discs and individual sonatas contained in mix rep releases, but my main focus is complete cycles. 



* Strictly speaking, there are 139 valid ways as of today, August 27, 2024.  Riccardo Schwartz's approach is invalid. 
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: (poco) Sforzando on August 27, 2024, 09:52:36 AM
Our family's first Beethoven sonata LP was Rubinstein doing the Pathetique and Appassionata. About a year after I started piano lessons at age 11 I bought volume 1 of the Bulow-Lebert Schirmer edition, and I was stumbling ineptly through the Pathetique, finding the slow introduction in particular great fun to bang all those big heavy chords out. Since then I have bungled my way through all 32 in various degrees of incompetence. But I was a lousy piano student (or so my teacher thought) since I never wanted to practice any one piece to master it, but I wanted instead to sight-read the entire repertoire so long as I could sort of play it. I am one with EM Forster (from On Not Listening Music):

QuoteAnd now to end with an important point: my own performances upon the piano. These grow worse yearly, but never will I give them up. For one thing, they compel me to attend no wool-gathering or thinking myself clever here – and they drain off all non-musical matter. For another thing, they teach me a little about construction. I see what becomes of a phrase, how it is transformed or returned, sometimes bottom upward, and get some notion of the relation of keys. Playing Beethoven, as I generally do, I grow familiar with his tricks, his impatience, his sudden softnesses, his dropping of a tragic theme one semitone, his love, when tragic, for the key of C minor, and his aversion to the key of B major. This gives me a physical approach of Beethoven which cannot be gained through the slough of "appreciation." Even when people play as badly as I do, they should continue: it will help them to listen.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: DavidW on August 27, 2024, 11:31:37 AM
Quote from: Karafan on August 27, 2024, 05:29:51 AMI'd be fascinated to hear how your association with them began, whether it has waxed and waned over the years, what recordings have grown on you and which have been treasurable from your early days?

I was introduced to the piano sonatas through the Beethoven class I took in college. My introduction was through Brendel. At the time, I found them strange and off-putting. I strongly preferred Mozart and Chopin.

I didn't warm up to Beethoven's solo piano music until I revisited them in grad school with Kempff (both sets), Annie Fischer and Kovacevich.  I grew to love the music.

But, these days, I just occasionally listen to the works. If I'm in the mood for classical-era piano music, I usually reach for Haydn instead.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: George on August 27, 2024, 11:58:51 AM
Quote from: DavidW on August 27, 2024, 11:31:37 AMI didn't warm up to Beethoven's solo piano music until I revisited them in grad school with Kempff (both sets), Annie Fischer and Kovacevich.  I grew to love the music.

That's a nice mix.

Kempff - beauty/smaller scale
Annie Fischer - heart/power
Kovacevich - muscle
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: George on August 27, 2024, 12:12:10 PM
Quote from: George on August 27, 2024, 05:59:58 AMI started with a love of the Moonlight sonata, which led me to the DG Originals Kempff CD of the name sonatas, then the DG Originals 2CD of him playing the late sonatas.

Ill share more later when I am at a keyboard

The late sonatas took a very long time to click, but once they did, I wanted to get a complete set so I tried my local used store. They had Barenboim (DG) and Arrau (Philips.) I wasn't yet the huge Arrau fan then that I am now, and back then I went for DDD recordings so I picked up the Barenboim. I enjoyed it, but thought his playing was mannered at times. Around that time, I joined GMG and noticed the recommendations for the Gulda Amadeo set by Todd. I found the Brilliant Classics release of this set at Virgin Megastore in NYC. I loved it immediately and after one listen, I was hooked on this music. I loved how Gulda conveyed the excitement of the music in a direct, fleet style and in good sound. Since then, I have picked up many other sets, but Gulda's Amadeo set will always be among my very favorites.

Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Luke on August 27, 2024, 12:29:27 PM
My introduction to the 32 was a total immersion, aged about 11, in a c.700 page single volume of the whole lot which came my way. I simply played the entire series through in the evenings after school over about a week, from op 2 to op 111 in order. It must have sounded horrific to anyone who heard - an 11 year old sight-reading the Hammerklavier!  :o - but within my own mind it was an exhausting experience of a musical intensity I had never experienced before and was a pivotal moment in my musical development. I sat there in a darkened room, a light falling on the page so that Beethoven's notes - his thoughts, his genius - and my fumbling childish fingers on the keys trying to make sense of the incomprehensibly great was all there was in the world. It was literally awesome.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Holden on August 27, 2024, 12:39:15 PM
At the earlier stages of learning the piano, somehow I heard a recording of the moonlight, realised that I could easily play the opening movement and with work, begin to master the other two. I asked my piano teacher if I could learn it but she said no, that I should tackle other easier works first. Undaunted I began to teach myself how to play it and my parents decided to get me a recording of the piece.

Somehow they chose well and I ended up with an LP of 8/14/23 in mono by none other than Wilhelm Kempff. This also introduced me to two new sonatas and I was immediately drawn towards the Pathetique. It also got me interested in recordings and my first LP purchase was from World Record Club - Hans Richter-Haaser playing Op2/1 and 2/2 along with the Op 77 Fantasia. My collecting and playing just naturally moved on from there and I can't think of a time when I didn't have a Beethoven sonata on the go (learning new or anew).

I like this comment from (poco) Sforzando

Since then I have bungled my way through all 32 in various degrees of incompetence


as I think also describes my playing very well.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: (poco) Sforzando on August 27, 2024, 01:04:46 PM
Quote from: Todd on August 27, 2024, 07:22:18 AMRiccardo Schwartz's approach is invalid.

For those who want to enjoy for themselves:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmNkpLsRRejxoN8y45jBuFg

I started with the exposition to 2/1, played legato and andante; got through a bit of op. 22 in six different tempos, sometimes all at once; then I listened to him struggle through the finale of 10/2 'cause it's too hard for him; and now it's taking him forever to negotiate the opening of 101 at a graceless crawl. Oh thank god it's over. Jeez, I thought my playing was bad.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Holden on August 28, 2024, 12:16:55 AM
Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on August 27, 2024, 01:04:46 PMFor those who want to enjoy for themselves:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmNkpLsRRejxoN8y45jBuFg

I started with the exposition to 2/1, played legato and andante; got through a bit of op. 22 in six different tempos, sometimes all at once; then I listened to him struggle through the finale of 10/2 'cause it's too hard for him; and now it's taking him forever to negotiate the opening of 101 at a graceless crawl. Oh thank god it's over. Jeez, I thought my playing was bad.


Got to agree with you. I gave up after 5 separate movements.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Mandryka on August 28, 2024, 01:05:21 AM
Any thoughts about why he put op 109 before op 106? He uses a nice Fazzioli.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Florestan on August 28, 2024, 01:23:16 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on August 28, 2024, 01:05:21 AMAny thoughts about why he put op 109 before op 106? He uses a nice Fazzioli.

Judging by how he plays, nobody can know why he does this or that.  ;D
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: AnotherSpin on August 28, 2024, 02:20:32 AM
I can't say when I first heard Beethoven's sonatas. In the USSR, decent performances of such sonatas as the Moonlight, Pathetique, and Appassionata by musicians like Richter or Gilels were played on the radio and TV almost every day. Every home had a relay radio which was on from 6 in the morning till midnight. At some point in my childhood, I began to recognize individual pieces and memorize what was playing. Or I knew in advance what would be played after the announcer's introduction. We had a relay radio in the kitchen, like many other people, and while I heated up and ate the lunch my mother had left for me, the music played from relay radio box.

After my father bought a serious radio receiver with long, medium, and shortwave bands, I started listening to serious music broadcast from other countries. In Odessa, we could receive broadcasts from Bucharest, Romania, quite well. It was there that I first heard Mahler, Richard Strauss, and other music unfamiliar in the USSR. I remember that it was also there that I first heard Beethoven's sonatas performed by Brendel. I also started listening to VOA programs with popular music then.

EPs and LPs could be bought very cheaply, though the variety was minimal. I bought my first records when I was about 12 years old, I guess, and among them was certainly Beethoven. Among the earliest strong impressions that I still remember was the Moonlight performed by Gieseking.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: ritter on August 28, 2024, 03:30:51 AM
The off-topic posts have been moved to a new thread, Worst Recordings (https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,33406.0.html). AFAIK, previously there was no thread on that topic on GMG.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Karafan on August 28, 2024, 06:21:17 AM
Quote from: Jo498 on August 27, 2024, 07:14:30 AMA prerecorded cassette tape on a cheapo label when I was about 15. It was Pathetique, Moonlight, Appassionata played by Bulgarian/French? pianist Yuri Boukoff, or at least I think it was all by him, could have been different pianists but probably a tape based on that LP, the MC looked a bit different, though, I think.

(https://i.discogs.com/ho9C2lfCOpK36aUFoyQFmx6IyakW2HbgR7lT4yQpz3I/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:597/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEwMjMw/MDY0LTE2NDAwMDY4/MjQtOTIxOS5qcGVn.jpeg)

Among the first 3 CDs I bought a year or so later were Kempff's recording of op. 106 and 31/2 as well as op.111 as filler for the 5th concerto. I also taped a few more sonatas from the radio or a bit later from friend's CDs.
But I was not that fond of or interested in solo piano music in my first few years of listening to classical music, preferring orchestral and chamber music. Nevertheless I bought sonatas 16-32 in a clothbound Peters pocket score in East Berlin 1989 (a few months before the Wall fell, one had to exchange a certain amount of money and music scores and maths textbooks were basically the only thing worth purchasing in East Germany...)

So it was about 8 years later, by then ca. 1996 that I got single discs of more Beethoven sonatas, I am not even sure about all the details, one was op.10 with Goode, also the DG originals reissue of Pollini's recording of the Late sonatas.

When, probably in 1997 the almost complete Gilels DG recordings were issued in that blue box inexpensively (for that time and highly regarded recordings) I bought this. But Gilels often rather slow and always weighty interpretations was not the best choice for getting to know the (mostly early) sonatas I had not heard yet. Another 2 years later, I think, in 1998 or 99 the Gulda (Amadeo, with discs in single jewelcases, basically no notes, and each sonata as one track) was on sale even more cheaply than the Gilels had been, I snapped it up and this was revelatory in those earlyish sonatas I had found a bit boring with Gilels.
Sure, with more familiarity I could later also appreciate the more weighty Gilels interpretations.

great story: thanks.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: DavidW on August 28, 2024, 06:27:03 AM
Quote from: ritter on August 28, 2024, 03:30:51 AMThe off-topic posts have been moved to a new thread, Worst Recordings (https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,33406.0.html). AFAIK, previously there was no thread on that topic on GMG.

Oh, we renamed that to the Havergal Brian thread a long time ago. DUCKS! :P  >:D  ;D
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: (poco) Sforzando on August 28, 2024, 07:37:34 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on August 28, 2024, 01:05:21 AMAny thoughts about why he put op 109 before op 106? He uses a nice Fazzioli.

Maybe he can't count?
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Todd on August 28, 2024, 07:51:04 AM
Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on August 28, 2024, 07:37:34 AMMaybe he can't count?

Dyscalculia is no laughing matter.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: ShineyMcShineShine on August 28, 2024, 04:34:58 PM
Quote from: Karafan on August 27, 2024, 05:29:51 AMHowever, I have yet to hear, or ever see for sale, the Lucchesini cycle
It isn't hard to find online. Or are you one of those who only listens to physical media?
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: (poco) Sforzando on August 28, 2024, 06:12:35 PM
Quote from: Karafan on August 27, 2024, 05:29:51 AM(However, I have yet to hear, or ever see for sale, the Lucchesini cycle!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blpSgjODwkQ&list=OLAK5uy_k4U2dQ10OsBJH2MabEKtqzBxV3V-D2t68

Worth every penny, and you won't need to spend a dime.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Karafan on August 29, 2024, 11:36:45 AM
Quote from: ShineyMcShineShine on August 28, 2024, 04:34:58 PMIt isn't hard to find online. Or are you one of those who only listens to physical media?
Guilty as charged!
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: André on August 29, 2024, 12:57:00 PM
As a young teenager I heard but one Beethoven sonatas disc for many years (Rubinstein playing 8, 14, 26). It was not before I was 15-16 that I got seriously into classical music. A friend made me listen to the Hammerklavier played by Ashkenazy and it was quite a shock to realize that Beethoven's sonatas could sound so different from what I was used to. And that pianists could have vastly different conceptions about producing sound from a keyboard.

It took me many attempts (LPs, then CDs) to figure out what Beethoven sound I liked best and what constituted good Beethoven playing. For example, I love Gilels in strong, rythmically driven sonatas (he is supreme in 21 and 23) but not in lighter ones. The approaches I respond to most are from Nat, Korstick and Heidsieck. They are bluff, no-nonsense, sometimes provocative, sometimes resolutely romantic. I find myself listening to the music when I hear them. With others I tend to analyse the playing and forget it's by Beethoven. That should never happen.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: prémont on August 29, 2024, 02:20:38 PM
As a child, I often listened to my father's LP collection, which contained a lot of Romantic and Vienna Classical music, including several recordings of Beethoven's piano sonatas by Gieseking and Annie Fischer. We also attended a lot of recitals, Brendel, Anda, Kempff, Klien et.c. playing Beethoven sonatas. My mother had a preference for Kempff, a sentiment I shared, leading me to acquire his stereo set years later. However, my interest in Vienna Classical and Romantic music began to wane, and I handed the Kempff recordings over to a friend. Later on my mother passed, and she left to me a strangely mixed LP box set of Backhaus' recordings of all the sonatas, combining both mono and stereo versions. Listening to this collection marked a turning point for me regarding the sonatas, prompting me to start collecting different interpretations. Now, I own quite a few sets, all of which I enjoy immensely. As for my favorites, there are too many to name.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: ShineyMcShineShine on August 29, 2024, 02:34:05 PM
Quote from: prémont on August 29, 2024, 02:20:38 PMAs a child, I often listened to my father's LP collection, which contained a lot of Romantic and Vienna Classical music
This was my parents' LP collection: https://theonion.com/parents-record-collection-deemed-hilarious-1819565724/
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: hopefullytrusting on August 29, 2024, 05:41:33 PM
Started with the Moonlight Sonata, on one of the "Best of Beethoven" cassettes, so no idea who the pianist was.

Then, moved on to Piano Sonata No. 30 because it was featured in one of my favorite movies ever, Trick (1999, directed by Jim Fall).

After that, I then purchased a dvd, The Art of the Piano and discovered Backhaus, and that was the first complete set I listened to.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: George on August 29, 2024, 05:53:08 PM
Quote from: hopefullytrusting on August 29, 2024, 05:41:33 PMAfter that, I then purchased a dvd, The Art of the Piano and discovered Backhaus, and that was the first complete set I listened to.

One of my favorite documentaries!
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: ShineyMcShineShine on August 30, 2024, 05:25:38 PM
My first disc was Pollini playing Opp. 22, 26, and 53 on DG. That was acquired in the late 90s via the late, great BMG Music Club which provided the nucleus of my collection. It didn't make much of an impression on me however, so it wasn't until recently that I finally listened to the entire cycle, by Richard Goode. Beethoven's piano sonatas are virtually the only ones I enjoy; everyone after him sounds wrong.
Title: Re: Beethoven piano sonatas - what is your origin story?
Post by: Florestan on September 01, 2024, 04:54:44 AM
The very first piano sonata I've ever heard was the Pathetique, recorded on LP by the Romanian pianist Dan Grigore (YT him if interested). I was about 13 at the time and madly in (unrequited) love with a classmate girl. The impression it made on me was devastating --- to this day it's my favorite of the bunch. Then it was the Op. 26 but I can't remember who played it (Richter, maybe?). Then the famous named ones (of which my favorite is Waldstein followed by The Tempest), then the rest.

I can't say I am passionate or knowledgeable about them, although I have around 10 (I think; possibly more) complete cycles, of which the Claude Frank is the only one I've listened to in its entirety. I have never made any comparative listening, I just let the music sound and enjoy it in the here and now, though I favor poetical, lyrical, tender and, dare I say it, light-hearted approaches.

As a related aside, in my late teens and early twenties Beethoven was my favorite composer hands down. Fast forward 30 years, I rarely feel the need to listen to his music --- but when I do, it's mostly his chamber music and piano sonatas.