Originally posted by Darloboy
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Or the classic Gilels? -
The last time Gramophone covered The Hammerklavier in its Collection feature the reviewer picked Arrau as his top choice. His Adagio is sublime, and the last movement coherent and organised. Only the first movement is not quite as barnstorming as some.Originally posted by Darloboy View PostComment
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Gilels is too slow for me. Schnabel is matchless in the slow movement. The 'live' Brendel is the one I turn to.
I came across a comment from Kovacevich on the last movement, responding to criticism of his performance of it as 'driven'; he said something like 'of course it's driven, it's nihilistic', though not sure he used that exact word. What is the last movement about? I've never been sure.Comment
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I have Gileks(G) and Barenboim’s on the old EMI. Both very good. Must hear some others too.Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
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One of those special works. I was only at York for a year in 71/72 doing a Mod Lang PGCE and the Music Dept had some great concerts. That's how I heard it live for the first and I think only time, played by Roger Woodward. It made a big impression (along with Scriabin and Takemitsu with different-colour lighting for each composer). I couldn't find a recording but see he's still playing it.
Recordings I have are a very strong Solomon in slightly clangy 1951 sound. Also Schnabel, Gilels, Kempff (mono) and Gulda (1967) who often turns out to be my favourite. Most recently came the revelation of Ronald Brautigam on BIS, playing a copy of an 1819 Graf fortepiano.Comment
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I have never seen it live either. This Beethoven Year 5 different Pianists were to have played all the 32 Sonatas through the Season and we had tickets for Pollini in the Hammerklavier, one of the Covid Casualty events. We did get to hear Gerstein in the Op.2 and Op.7 Sonatas, 1 year ago this weekend.Originally posted by gurnemanz View Post
O.T., but I read a review in Fanfare, by an English reviewer Colin Clarke, that there is a movement to consider 3 early Sonatas as part of the Beethoven Canon, so there really are 35 Sonatas? The review was for a set by Martino Tirimo on the Haansler Label. I have put the 3 early works in my favorites but not yet listened to themComment
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Was he playing their Fazioli on the occasion you heard him play, or was that before they acquired it? Quite an instrument.Originally posted by gurnemanz View PostComment
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Brautigam (and Bilson and former pupils before him) included the 3 Kurfürstensonaten sonatas in his recorded survey.Originally posted by richardfinegold View PostComment
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I'm afraid I have to admit that at that time I was not paying attention to such things. I only quite recently really became aware of Fazioli as "quite an instrument" when I got Louis Lortie playing Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage on Chandos. Magnificent sound especially in the bass area. One of my favourite piano recordingsOriginally posted by Bryn View PostComment
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Interesting how our tastes differ - I find Brautigam a superb artist and it is also the recorded sound that he gets from BIS that makes me enjoy his recordings even more!Originally posted by Darloboy View PostComment
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With so many new sonata-cycles out this year, complete or ongoing (after Levit there's Fazil Say, Scherbakov, Melodie Zhao, HJ Lim, Minsoo Sohn....I've dipped into and enjoyed several of these, Scherbakov especially) we really need a Beethoven 2020 Survey on the sonatas and other cycles, from BaL or the Gramophone....
BaL has in the past included single-composer surveys, such as Dutilleux or Gubaidulina, so why not something like this? How on earth can you choose a "106 for today" without such references?Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 27-10-20, 13:22.Comment
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I'm glad to see you mentioning Scherbakov here - I've listened to most of his sonatas so far, apart from the late ones, and I've been very impressed. I especially like the clarity of his playing: he almost always avoids the sustaining pedal where not marked (unlike, I would say, the majority of pianists).
However, I listened, just this afternoon, to his Hammerklavier, and was disappointed by his tempo for the first movement, which seems crucial to the effect of the piece as a whole. I first learned this piece (as a listener: I'm no keyboard player) from Charles Rosen's LP, and from reading his magnificent 'The Classical Style'. He came up to Durham when I was studying music there (mid-70s), and played the Hammerklavier; a group of us stayed up into the early hours with him after the concert, drinking beer and marvelling at the way he was as eloquent with words as with the notes. And I've never forgotten his insistence that that opening should never sound maestoso: indeed, it makes the music smaller, rather than larger, if you don't play it fast enough.
And Scherbakov, although reasonably fast in much of i, is undeniably going for the maestoso effect in the opening motif, wherever it happens. And he follows with a disappointingly slow Scherzo: the slowest of all the 23 (ok, I'm a bit obsessed with this piece...) versions noted in my score. A pity, because his final two movements strike me as a lot more successful.
It's Osborne and Levit for me, though if I feel like a slightly less driven version, I might listen again to Koroliov, whose recording I discovered last week, thanks to a post in (I think) another thread here. I enjoyed the way Koroliov sets brisk initial tempi, for both first movement and fugue, but then lets the music relax in places.Comment
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Fazioli pianos even impress the good people at Steinway. Praise indeed.Originally posted by gurnemanz View PostComment
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