BaL 11.02.23 - Beethoven: Piano Sonata no. 23 in F minor "Appassionata"

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Possibly my favourite piano work, but I have only 3 recordings - the ones in the Brilliant Classics complete Beethoven boxset: Gulda, Gieseking & Nat. I've heard it played live just once (John Ogdon in Hebden Bridge - early 1970s).

I discovered the work when my school piano teacher suggested to my parents that they bought the 3-volume Associated Board set of the Beethoven Sonatas, which they very kindly did. I spent days, playing through any bits I could manage - I was working toward Grade 7 at the time. The opening movement of the Appassionata stood head and shoulders above anything else, and I learnt to play the first three pages very quickly. The rest of the first movement took a little longer, but it became one of the very few movements I could play from memory. The second movement wasn't a problem technically, but the finale was put on to one side until I was at university.

Even though I'm greatly inferior as a player to everyone in the long list, this work is so satisfying to play, that I prefer to compromise with my own efforts. This may seem strange, but I'm strange in many other ways too .

[Joseph K]

... yes : as with the Paul Komen set
.

Welcome back...

[Bryn]

Welcome back...

How complete was that set? I only have a few individual CDs of Komen playing Beethoven. Discogs is not much help here. They list rather fewer in their Paul Komen discography than I have here. Of the piano sonatas, I have opera 8, 9, 10, 11, 31/1, 31/2, 31/3, 53, 54, 57, 109, 110 and 111, plus the piano and cello sonatas, the Diabelli Variations and the Choral Fantasy.

[vinteuil]

How complete was that set? I only have a few individual CDs of Komen playing Beethoven. Discogs is not much help here. They list rather fewer in their Paul Komen discography than I have here. Of the piano sonatas, I have opera 8, 9, 10, 11, 31/1, 31/2, 31/3, 53, 54, 57, 109, 110 and 111, .

There is also vol iv : ops 78, 79, 81a, 90

[Bryn]

There is also vol iv : ops 78, 79, 81a, 90

Oops, not "8, 9, 10, 11" but "13, 14/1, 14/2, 22" (sloppy transcribing from the front covers which listed ordinals, rather than opus numbers). Come to think of it, I might have that vol IV, too. I was relying on memory and amaon.co.uk listings. Unfortunately, most of my non-boxed-set Beethoven CDs are housed in two stacks of 7 black plastic bins, each holding around 45 discs in their jewel cases, and I could not be bothered to go and check.

[Joseph K]

Barenboim or Brautigam for me.

[Pianoman]

Barenboim or Brautigam for me.

Agree completely on Brautigam, but just wondered which Barenboim ? I still have his early EMI which was such a benchmark for me as a teen, but it strikes me as quite different from his DG cycle; there are also odd individual live ones on separate releases...

[Sir Velo]

Agree completely on Brautigam, but just wondered which Barenboim ? .

Daniel, I would think.

[Pianoman]

Daniel, I would think.

Nice one

[Ein Heldenleben]

Possibly my favourite piano work, but I have only 3 recordings - the ones in the Brilliant Classics complete Beethoven boxset: Gulda, Gieseking & Nat. I've heard it played live just once (John Ogdon in Hebden Bridge - early 1970s).

I discovered the work when my school piano teacher suggested to my parents that they bought the 3-volume Associated Board set of the Beethoven Sonatas, which they very kindly did. I spent days, playing through any bits I could manage - I was working toward Grade 7 at the time. The opening movement of the Appassionata stood head and shoulders above anything else, and I learnt to play the first three pages very quickly. The rest of the first movement took a little longer, but it became one of the very few movements I could play from memory. The second movement wasn't a problem technically, but the finale was put on to one side until I was at university.

Even though I'm greatly inferior as a player to everyone in the long list, this work is so satisfying to play, that I prefer to compromise with my own efforts. This may seem strange, but I'm strange in many other ways too .

Not at all. Even stumbling through a Beethoven sonata you learn more than a hundred recordings. Impressed that you could manage that diminished seventh broken chord that occurs in page one when grade seven.
A lot of the flashy arpeggios in the first movement are splittable between hands though.

[mikealdren]

Possibly my favourite piano work.

It's a real favourite of mine too, I'm not a pianist so I can't play it but I have several recordings and the first I bought (on LP) was the Richter RCA version which I still prefer to all others. It is interesting how one's first recordings do sometimes implant themselves on the memory.

[Joseph K]

Agree completely on Brautigam, but just wondered which Barenboim ? I still have his early EMI which was such a benchmark for me as a teen, but it strikes me as quite different from his DG cycle; there are also odd individual live ones on separate releases...

I meant the early EMI Barenboim.

[silvestrione]

I meant the early EMI Barenboim.

For many years my favourite, and I still love and admire it. Last movement 'non troppo' as asked for, and the Presto at the end with marvellous attention to Beethoven's markings, which make it more effective than, e.g. Pollini, Ashkenazy, Richter, who go hell-for-leather.

I am now another enthusiast for Olga Pashchenko. But, gosh, there are so many great performances...I prefer the live Richter on Melodya, but not too often! Gilels DG, Solomon, Gulda, Arrau. Must try the Brautigam...

[Bryn]

Agree completely on Brautigam, but just wondered which Barenboim ? I still have his early EMI which was such a benchmark for me as a teen, but it strikes me as quite different from his DG cycle; there are also odd individual live ones on separate releases...

Plus the DVDs, including the masterclasses.

[smittims]

...and also the 'Beethoven for all' series of recordings, made in Berlin in 2005. i did hear he'd made yet another set during the widespread live-concert ban imposed from the spring of 2020.

The story goes that when EMI asked him to make his first set, as part of a major investment they made in him in the 1960s, he agreed on condition that they let him record them again when he was older. But then of course he left EMI and his next set was the early '80s DG. Hence the different interpretations.