So, so difficult, but much as I am tempted to say Brautigam, or indeed Binns (the uneven condition of the instruments notwithstanding), I think I will plump for the Orfeo Gulda set. I'd known the '67 set for decades, along with the Decca of the final three. Next I got the full Decca set and was pretty much bowed over. Then came the Orfeo set. If you have not heard it, make sure you change that situation.
Beethoven Piano Sonatas; a quick vote
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Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View PostThat would be my choice too. I'd just have ro do without the others.
But my real answer is that I would choose the Associated Board edition of the complete sonatas and play them myself. Despite the inferior end result, it's by tar the most satisfying way to get to know these amazing works.
Likewise, those AB scores are very good indeed. Likewise, the trouble is, if I could be Gilels or Barenboim, or Schnabel, combined, would'nt that be wonderful!Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750
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VodkaDilc
Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View PostThat would be my choice too. I'd just have ro do without the others.
But my real answer is that I would choose the Associated Board edition of the complete sonatas and play them myself. Despite the inferior end result, it's by tar the most satisfying way to get to know these amazing works.
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VodkaDilc
Originally posted by Brassbandmaestro View PostThat's the edition I have! *The 1931 Craxton & Tovey)
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Originally posted by VodkaDilc View PostAnd I am sure that you mean the classic red hardback Craxton and Tovey 1931 edition and not the soulless, fussy and difficult to read new Associated Board edition of the 35 (sic) Beethoven Sonatas. My copies are over 45 years old and still going strong.
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VodkaDilc
Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View PostYes indeed. The new Barry Cooper edition is an exercise in oneupmanship, with the 3 sonatinas added, and a few editorial changes of relatively little consequence. Unlike the original Craxton/Tovey volumes, these new ones are a devil to keep flat when playing.
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anamnesis
Originally posted by Alison View PostIt would have to be Brendel for me.
The off air recordings of his early eighties cycle - thanks dad - I hold in the very highest regard.
The CDs not always quite so inspired.
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Originally posted by makropulos View PostGulda - either the mono set on Decca or the broadcasts on Orfeo. Miraculous playing matched by wonderful concentration and intelligence. Not that other cycles don't have all this, but I find Gulda to be as compelling an intepreter of this music as anyone.
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Arcades Project
Really it's impossible, isn't it?
On period pianos I hope Paul Komen's Globe recordings won't be forgotten (such a shame he didn't get to record more or all of the sonatas): if he had I suspect I'd have preferred them generally to Brautigam. The ZigZag Alexei Lubimov disc of op. 109-111 is for me indispensable. & there are many recordings of individual sonatas on modern pianos that are of such great insight.
Otherwise for a box I'd go in general for Gulda's Orfeo set (though the late 60s 'cycle' is excellent). Three other sets that haven't been mentioned, maybe because no one apart from me likes them
yes, he has his way of doing things but I often listen to András Schiff's ECM CDs from concert recordings.
François-Frédéric Guy on ZigZag. He can certainly sound perverse or mannered, but there's much more life & provocation of thought than most http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Zigzag/ZZT304 (etc. divides opinions). Staggeringly it's his third recording of the Hammerklavier, which IMV he always plays superbly. (To digress, I also heard him give in concert a performance of Schubert's A major sonata D.959 which was a thing of astonishing intensity & pathos).
Rudolf Buchbinder's new 'live' set http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/RCA/88697875102 which again will divide opinion. Maybe no bad thing.
I have Brendel recordings, I've heard him give concerts, but his playing has never really clicked with me. Oddly, given what's written above, I prefer him in Beethoven to Schubert; taken together with his ruinous omission of D.960's exposition repeat.
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