BaL 6.07.13 - Beethoven's Piano Sonata no. 32 in C minor Op. 111

[verismissimo]

9.30am Building a Library
David Owen Norris surveys recordings of Beethoven's last piano sonata, No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 and makes a personal recommendation

(Original OP edited by Eine Alpensinfonie to facilitate merger of threads)

[rauschwerk]

I have: Schnabel, Brendel, Lewis, Pollini, Rosen, Kempff. I'll try and listen to them all in the next few days and report.

[verismissimo]

I have, like you rauschwerk, Schnabel and Pollini, plus young Barenboim, Uchida and Gulda.

The one I'm in love with currently is Gulda.

[tom_960]

I'll be drawn to one of Kempff's recordings, having heard him play the piece live at the RFH near the end of his life. But Pollini's controlled power is awesome in the last three sonatas. I think I have a Richter recording too....

[Pianorak]

Wilhelm Backhaus - first time I heard the piece; and Backhaus is still a front-runner.

[ostuni]

Looking at my score (easier than looking at the cd shelves), I see I have rather a lot. Perl, Heidsieck, Kovacevich (73 & 03 versions), Rosen, Richter, Ciani, Ohlsson, Arrau, Goode, Gulda (Amadeo/Brilliant), P Serkin, Brautigam, Lubimov (the final 3 versions on fortepianos). I 'imprinted' on the Rosen, on LP back in the early 70s: he's still probably my favourite for this sonata, not least for the way he creates a sense of suspended time during all those trills in the final few pages.

[verismissimo]

Just discovered that I've also got young Brendel. I'll give it a new listen.

So that's six for me and six for rauschwerk - neither anyway near ostuni's fourteen.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Available versions:-


Nicholas Angelich
Claudio Arrau (DVD - 1960)
Claudio Arrau (DVD - 1964)
Claudio Arrau (DVD – 1970/77)
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Wilhelm Backhaus (1954/56)
Wilhelm Backhaus (1960)
Wilhelm Backhaus (Decca)
Paul Badura-Skoda
Daniel Barenboim (DVD/Blu-ray - live 1983)
Daniel Barenboim (DVD - live 2005)
Daniel Barenboim (EMI/DG)
Stephen Beville
John Bingham
Malcolm Binns
Ida Biret
Ronald Brautigam
Alfred Brendel (Philips/Decca/Vox)
Kim Brewer
Rudolf Buchbinder
Shura Cherkassky
Dino Ciani
Richard Cionco (download)
Jeremy Denk
Simone Dinnerstein
Vladimir Feltsman
Annie Fischer
Edwin Fischer
Claude Frank
Walter Gieseking (2 versions)
Stewart Goodyear
Vera Gornostaeva
Glenn Gould (2 versions)
Maria Grinberg
Friedrich Gulda (Decca/Orfeo/Preiser)
Youra Guller
François-Frédéric Guy
Andreas Haefliger
Clara Haskil
Jean-Francois Heisser
Randall Hodgkinson
Mieczislaw Horszowski
Stephen Hough
Michael Houstoun
Bruce Hungerford
Jeno Jando
Alina Kabanova
Julius Katchen
Freddy Kempf
Wilhelm Kempff (1956/60)/DG x 2
Mari Kodama
Paul Komen
David Korevaar
Michael Korstick
Stephen Kovacevich
Anton Kuerti
Jacob Lateiner
Yvonne Lefébure
Elisabeth Leonskaja
Christian Leotta
Beth Levin
Paul Lewis
HJ Lim
Louis Lortie
Alexei Lubimov
Irén Marik
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (download)
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (DVD)
Benjamin Moser
Tatiana Nikolayeva
Romuald Noll
John O’Conor
Garrick Ohlsson
John Ogdon (1963)
Yoshiko Okada
Gerhard Oppitz
Marios Papadopoulos
Olga Pashchenko
Alfredo Perl
Cédric Pescia
Egon Petri
Artur Pizarro
Mikhail Pletnov
Georges Pludermacher
Ivo Pogorelich (CD/DVD)
Maurizio Pollini
Jean-Bernard Pommier
Vassily Primakov
Sviatoslav Richter (4 versions)
Hans Richter-Haaser
Robert Riefling
Bernard Roberts
Martin Roscoe
Victor Rosenbaum
Carol Rosenberger
Pietro Scarpini
András Schiff (DVD – lecture recital)
András Schiff (CD)
Artur Schnabel
Rudolf Serkin
Antti Siirala
Ronald Smith
Inger Södergren
Solomon (2 versions)
Einar Steen–Nøkleberg
Mark Swartzentruber
Mitsuko Uchida
Dina Ugorskaja
Ferenc Vizi
Lasr Vogt (DVD – live)
Gerard Willems
Maria Yudina
Boris Zarankin

[Bryn]

Where on Earth to start? There are so many that are special to me. There's the three Gulda recordings, each with its particular delights, then the three I have by Paul Badura-Skoda (2 on Bösendorfers and one on his c. 1824 Graf) then there's Arrau, a couple of Schnabels, various Brendels and Barenboims, Lewis, the very fine Brautigam, Lubimov and Schiff recordings from recent years, etc., etc. I think, though, the one I would make the bravest attempt to save from a fire would be that by Paul Komen on a c. 1830 Graf. It does it for me every time, but then there's Malcolm Binns, whose recording first awoke me to the glories of the fortepiano in this work ...

[The 1942 RCA Schnabel recording is in sore need of a decent CD transfer, by the way.]

[[What a useful thread this is. Prompted by it I did a bit of Googling for the 1942 Schnabel and found, to my delight that it, along with that of Op. 109, was included on a Great Pianist of the 20th Century album. Just ordered a used (good condition) copy via amazon.co.uk. Hopefully it is a better transfer than the RCA double album:

[Bryn]

Malcolm Bilson or Tom Beghin or David Breitman or Bart van Oort or Ursula Dütschler (?) [HELP]

Tom Beghin on an 1825 Fritz. I think I'll give it a spin right now.

[Hmm, right from the start it is clearly not in the same class as his rather later Haydn recordings on Naxos Blu-ray Audio.]

[makropulos]

Bryn - I'd very much go along with several on your list. On a modern instrument, Gulda is the pianist I turn to most often for Opp. 109, 110 and 111, closely followed by Arrau. But clearly I need to hear (and buy) Kornen's disc on a Graf - you make it sound quite marvellous.

[Parry1912]

Pogorelich on CD is as good as any I've heard (and I've heard a few)

[Bryn]

makropulos, the Komen can be either bought on CD or downloaded in mp3 format from amazon.co.uk. However, a customer review there warns that the mp3s have no pause at the end of each 'track'. I would guess that that could be easily sorted with a bit of editing.

[gurnemanz]

Solomon, Gulda, Kempff and the new Lubimov on fortepiano which I like very much.

I got to know this work as a German undergraduate at Durham 40 years ago. We were doing Thomas Mann with our lecturer, John Smeed. One week he took us through the op 111 analysis in the novel, Dr Faustus - with musical examples, as I recall.

[ostuni]

On a modern instrument, Gulda is the pianist I turn to most often for Opp. 109, 110 and 111, closely followed by Arrau.

Interesting: Gulda is the pianist I'd turn to most often for the early sonatas, but I find him sometimes a bit rushed in the late ones - here, as I said earlier, I love Rosen's approach. I've just put most of my op 111s (and my op 2/2s) onto my mp3 player: I've lucky enough to have a week in Provence next week, and look forward to some evenings in with the headphones on...