This piece was one of my first “hooks” into Classical Music in my early teens. A borrowed—stole, really—a friend’s record of Paul Badura Skoda (whom Inow associate with tinkly fortepiano, not thundering Bosendorfers, but he was a bit of a fire eating virtuoso in his early days)—and played it into oblivion. All of that molten fury and passion threatening to burst loose and finally escaping—my surging testosterone levels of early puberty ate i up.
I hadn’t much listened to it until a recent chance radio hearing reawakened a long dormant passion. Pollini, Kempff, Arrau, Annie Fisher have all crossed my airwaves recently, but for me, Richter seems to have the measure of the piece—he is just a vessel for channeling Beethoven’s fury.
Is this one of Beethoven’s sublime creations, or is it his 1812 Overture? Prospero’s enchanted island, or Macbeth’s sound and fury, signifying nothing? Do modern grands do the work justice, or does a superb fortepiano Pianist such as Brautigan best convey the sense of overwhelming the limitations of the instrument?
I hadn’t much listened to it until a recent chance radio hearing reawakened a long dormant passion. Pollini, Kempff, Arrau, Annie Fisher have all crossed my airwaves recently, but for me, Richter seems to have the measure of the piece—he is just a vessel for channeling Beethoven’s fury.
Is this one of Beethoven’s sublime creations, or is it his 1812 Overture? Prospero’s enchanted island, or Macbeth’s sound and fury, signifying nothing? Do modern grands do the work justice, or does a superb fortepiano Pianist such as Brautigan best convey the sense of overwhelming the limitations of the instrument?
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