Beethoven Appassionata Piano Sonata, Op.57

[Bryn]

Well, it does combine the two periods of music I most enjoy, that's true.

The composer's own stereo recording was very much my sing-along during my mid-teens. Still a big favourite.

[Pulcinella]

And now.....

At least I have listened to the Arrau and followed the score (being grateful for a lack of repeat in the Allegro ma non troppo!).

At the risk of having any credibility I have further demolished, I have to report that I was totally unmoved and unpersuaded!

Apart from having great sympathy for pianists who have to perform it or feel that it must be part of their repertoire.



I'm not a cold heartless unfeeling chap, either: The Waltons or The Little House on the Prairie can reduce me.
As can much music, of course.
But, as rfg kindly acknowledged: vive la diiférence.
I openly admit that (perhaps with the exception of PC4 and PC5) if I never heard another piece by Beethoven I don't think I'd care.

(Donations instead of flowers/messages of sympathy could be sent to the York Minster organ appeal: )

[Bryn]

A very heartening response rfg, thank you so much for it....

If you can take just a little more Beethoven at least, do listen to Pashchenko's Variations album - the C Minor work gets the performance of its life on there, and it is a different instrument too (Christopher Clarke copy of an 1818 Fritz), perhaps an even finer-sounding one than the Conrad Graf used for the Sonatas.

But I'm so glad you took the trouble for a close listen to this extraordinary Op.57, and responded so positively! That's great.

Agreed on all points. Many thanks for alerting me to the existence of these recordings. I have listened via QOBUZ in 44.1/16 but am very tempted to splash out on the 88.2/24 download of the OP. 53, 57 and 81a sonatas.

[Currently listening to the Op. 77 Fantasia. Great stuff indeed.]

[silvestrione]

BEETHOVEN OP.57
Olga Paschenko, Qobuz Studio, Alpha 24/88.2. Rec. 2016.

You want sensational virtuosity and volatility, extremes of control and confrontation, one of Beethoven’s greatest challenges to the listener presented as the physical and emotional self-examination it surely must have been to create…..?

....It’s all here……
Olga Pashchenko….on an Original Conrad Graf Piano of 1824 at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn.

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/beethoven-piano-sonatas-21-23-26-olga-pashchenko/3760014193651

(credit not me, but a tip-off from a little bird… a Mistle Thrush by another name… whom I thank for this transformative discovery…
come back soon little bird, alight on my shoulder, whisper songs in my ear, and we shall Promenade together...)

Well, I ordered this one, and am very glad I did. JLW's praise definitely not exaggerated in my view. Huge expressive range, heightened by the instrument, and I love the expressive articulating of the arpeggio figures. She follows Beethoven's pedal markings meticulously (first-time round, anyway, in the finale), and I can now see fully why he asks for the sustaining pedal to be lifted at the end of bar 204 in the finale (which Tovey called a stroke of genius), so the sound dies away to silence before the crucial dominant seventh chord comes in. The only disappointment, after one listen, was that in the Presto, after the first two explosive chords, the quaver ones that follow are not piano as asked for (sorry, a bit of a touchstone for me!).

[jayne lee wilson]

Well, I ordered this one, and am very glad I did. JLW's praise definitely not exaggerated in my view. Huge expressive range, heightened by the instrument, and I love the expressive articulating of the arpeggio figures. She follows Beethoven's pedal markings meticulously (first-time round, anyway, in the finale), and I can now see fully why he asks for the sustaining pedal to be lifted at the end of bar 204 in the finale (which Tovey called a stroke of genius), so the sound dies away to silence before the crucial dominant seventh chord comes in. The only disappointment, after one listen, was that in the Presto, after the first two explosive chords, the quaver ones that follow are not piano as asked for (sorry, a bit of a touchstone for me!).

Do check out the "Transitions" and the "Beethoven Variations" albums I linked to above, they're every bit as exciting. "Transitions" has the Beethoven Op. 111 and the Mendelssohn "Variations Serieuses" alongside some strikingly unfamiliar Dussek (sonata op.61) - quite a bold programme for a solo debut!

Perhaps I should finally be explicit and thank Thropplenoggin for the original recommendation of the 53/57/81a now, sent to me via PM...
It led to some wonderful discoveries. Pashchenko is a true connoisseur of the fortepiano, and contributes excellent notes to the albums about the instruments, in particular how very varied their sound and design was in the later 18thC., as the demand for the music and the catalogue of compositions grew quickly, and the piano design and construction developed rapidly in response.

[Joseph K]

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 just listened to (one of, I think) Arrau's take on this piece (see what are you listening to thread). It is indeed an incredibly awesome piece of music. Not that this was the first time I'd listened to the piece obviously...

Arrau's tone is at times a little raucous. I don't have much to say about various interpretations or fortepiano vs. modern grand. I will check out Richter though, or whatever appears to me on youtube. I have the complete Beethoven piano sonatas on CD played by Barenboim...

[Cockney Sparrow]

Do check out the "Transitions" and the "Beethoven Variations" albums I linked to above, they're every bit as exciting. "Transitions" has the Beethoven Op. 111 and the Mendelssohn "Variations Serieuses" alongside some strikingly unfamiliar Dussek (sonata op.61) - quite a bold programme for a solo debut!

Perhaps I should finally be explicit and thank Thropplenoggin for the original recommendation of the 53/57/81a now, sent to me via PM...
It led to some wonderful discoveries. Pashchenko is a true connoisseur of the fortepiano, and contributes excellent notes to the albums about the instruments, in particular how very varied their sound and design was in the later 18thC., as the demand for the music and the catalogue of compositions grew quickly, and the piano design and construction developed rapidly in response.

Just listened to the Pashchenko on Naxos Music Library - I'm no authority on piano interpretation, but I can say I quickly forgot it was on fortepiano and it was exciting and engaging; hearing fortepiano recordings nearly always gives rise to the thought we are lucky to have the modern pianoforte.

[Bryn]

. . . hearing fortepiano recordings nearly always gives rise to the thought we are lucky to have the modern pianoforte.

We are indeed, but also lucky to have the instruments the composers were familiar with.

[silvestrione]

Just listened to the Pashchenko on Naxos Music Library - I'm no authority on piano interpretation, but I can say I quickly forgot it was on fortepiano and it was exciting and engaging; hearing fortepiano recordings nearly always gives rise to the thought we are lucky to have the modern pianoforte.

I see what you mean: sometimes one ends up mentally 'making allowances' for what seem the limitations of the fortepiano, and with this Graf there was none of that. However, I was conscious all through of the differences between the registers, and of course on a Steinway that effect in bar 204 of the finale is just spoilt because the sound does not die away into dramatic near-silence as Beethoven intended.