Customer Reviews

Beethoven: Complete Piano Concertos

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Well, unlike the other reviewer, I don't relish the prospect of listening to music while huddled over, next to, or anywhere near my computer while it's briskly editing out all traces of life from my listening experience. As a matter of fact, I like the performances on this disc because they are so beautifully realized in front of a live audience, whose applause isn't unwelcome at all. It just reminds me that music, like dance, is an art form that requires human performance and reception. More live music making please; it's the only kind that matters. And if live concerts can be recorded as beautifully as Philips recorded these Beethoven concerts, so much the better! For the record, Brendel has recorded the Beethoven concertos, complete, four times: first on Vox, then three times for Philips. This set strikes me as his most successful. Levine is a fine Beethoven conductor and Chicago is a marvelous orchestra, but neither comes from the sort of tradition (Viennese) that Brendel brings to bear on his Beethoven performances. I think that very difference of backgound/culture worked to produce a marvelously stimulating encounter, fully appreciated by the Ravinia Festival audience. In fact, you can sense electricity was in the air. I only regret I wasn't there, but at least I have this souvenir of a remarkable human encounter producing glorious music! (By the way, that sense of electricity is missing from the studio-manufactured performance of the Choral Fantasy included on this set. It's a perfectly respectable performance, but it just doesn't register with the same sense of occasion that positively leaps out at you when you're listening to the concertos.)

I spent a considerable amount of time searching through the several versions of these concertos that are available at Amazon. Bless their audition tracks! Finally I settled on Alfred Brendel's version. His interpretation is perfect IMO. The recording is not. It is acceptable though, and the magnificence of the music and its performance makes up for the fuzziness of what should have been better recordings. They're not all that old- 1977 for the Fantasy and 1983 for the Concertos.

This is an excellent set of recordings by the outstanding Alfred Brendel. The orchestral work is similarly excellent. Aside from the uniform excellence of these performances, the best thing about this set is that it provides a really nice picture of the evolution of Beethoven's compositional style. The relatively uniform orchestral and soloist approaches allows a comparison of Beethoven's compositional styles. While recorded with a modern orchestra and a modern piano, the 1st and 2nd concertos display the more Classical style of Beethoven's earlier work. The 5th and final, Emperor, concerto, is an outstanding example of Beethoven's mature and fully Romantic style.

If you gave me a choice of any pianist playing these concertos, I'd take Pollini and Rubinstein. However, these recordings are a BIG part of any serious classical music library. Brendel, as always, offers top rate Beethoven interpretations and performances. I particularly enjoyed the second and third piano concertos.

What is the meaning of "Beethoven the Titan"? To some it means that Beethoven was the first true romantic composer; an erroneous notion that is largely a product of the last 150 years of "modern tradition" beginning with people such as Richard Wagner who have tried to make Beethoven over into their image of what he was distorting what he honestly was. As a composer Beethoven's musical language was still solidly classical, having more in common with Mozart and Haydn than Schumann, Mendelssohn, or Brahms. However, he seemed to be expressing ideas of much greater power than either of his famous predecessors while still trying to utilize the forms and musical syntax they helped to develop. Beethoven needed to expand their possibilities while seemingly not distorting them beyond recognition or making a mess of things spilling all over the place, so to speak. To me the idea of Beethoven as a Titan refers to this titanic struggle to express himself as he desired while still respecting the forms he inherited.

I think at least in part this is what Alfred Brendel has in mind when he set out to make these recordings of the Beethoven piano concertos. He plays them quite regular and straight using little or no rubato, as he frequently does, but seems to avoid stiffness or metronomic playing by springing the rythms. There is a flexibility and dynamism to his playing that keeps it interesting without being exaggerated. Brendel also plays with a great sense of authority and confidence. Every note is clearly articulated with great assurance. There is great power here that does not sound forced but comes very naturally. Brendel had lived with these works for many years and had studied the most recent scholarship before aproaching these performances. Clearly he knows these pieces inside and out.

I think the point I am trying to make about Beethoven as a composer is graphically illustrated particularly in the 5th concerto with passages of delicate beauty alternating with passages of unprecedented power showing the tiantic struggle he was going through in his mind not only to express himself but in contemplating his increasing deafness. Those who feel that Alfred Brendel falls short of expressing as a performer the intentions of Beethoven as fully as he should or could may be approaching these recordings with false expectations of Beethoven being a fully developed romantic composer. For performances that are still coming from the "modern tradition" they are still relatively honest and truthful and maybe some people can't handle the truth. As to the perceived "pinginess" in the sound of the piano it is very slight and could be the result of some minor flaw in the sound engineering of these recordings. It doesn't bother me. The loud applause which is particularly so at the end of the 5th possibility should have been eliminated but it does not ruin for me an otherwise superlative experience. Get over it.

James Levine and and his Chicago Players may not be symbiotic partners but they are more than just supportive accompantists; they seem to be collaboraters with a shared vision which they express with definite skill. The Choral Fantasy with Bernard Haitink and the London Philharmonic definitely one of the best makes a nice addition.

Yes, the set could have benefitted from te removal of the applause, however the performance itself is perfect. Brendel's playing is superb, however at times a bit mechanical. The recording quality however is excellent and makes it a must have set for an Beethoven lover.

These are excellent performances of these concertos for Brendel. I particularly like his rendition of concerto no. 4. I'd also like to comment on the sub-issue going on in these reviews. Sorry Thomas, but I'd have to agree with the others on this one. These recordings would have benefited from the removal of the applause for the reasons cited. Like Thomas, I sometimes like to kick back, close my eyes and fantasize that I'm at a live performance when listening to a good recording. The fact is though that a recording is not a live performance. And even if it was, applause is not part of the performance. It's the audience's response to a good performance. The "electricity" felt at a live artistic performance is what elicits applause from those listening. It's based on such things as the beauty of the piece itself and the high degree of execution performed by the artists.

I think the general acclaim given to this set of Beethoven concertos here on Amazon is atypical: the critical consensus isn't high for Brendel's 1983 set. Certainly he shows more interest in the later one with Rattle on EMI. If you love Brendel already, then his rather clipped, non-romantic way with these works will seem suitably classic and thoughtful -- his admirers make a virtue of this pianist's restraint and absence of passion and originality. But of Beethoven the revolutionary there's not much evidence. Tempos are generally fast, and in the earlier concertos the mood is closer to Mozart than I like. Where's the blood and fire? Levine provides a sometimes impatient acccompaniment, and neither artist cares to pause over phrases that cry out for more depth. Add to this a fairly thin, pingy piano sound, and I'm afraid there are too many debits compared to the great performances by Gieseking, Edwin Fischer, Rudolf Serkin, Fleisher, Barenboim (with Klemperer on EMI), and many others.

You know, most of the time I don't like reading these reviews much and what's happened here is the perfect example of why. The first reviewer starts out giving an honest enough opinion about a CD he's listened to along with his advice. Then along comes a wiseguy who stiffs him and decides to launch a personal attack. Give me a break. I didn't even think that type of review was suppose be posted. I just finished listening to this album for the first time and I see exactly what Hess is trying to say here and it's a pet peeve of my own. I have some old Furtwangler recordings on CD that contain applause, but in that case it's tastefully done. You know, muted and abbreviated. I'd like it if it wasn't even there but the audience kind of jumped the gun and if it had been edited out a very apparent part of the piece would've gotten cut off as well. Classical music consists of masterpieces composed by the greatest musical minds of all time. Seems to me that the last thing most sane people would want is a bunch of unwanted schlock on it like this to spoil the experience. And the real tragedy is that on these particular recordings this could have been edited off no problem. This talk about the excitement and grandeur of a live performance is bogus. Oh don't get me wrong, I love going to live concerts, feeling the mood and joining in on the applause at the end. But a CD is no live performance! It should be a perfect representation of the piece, as pristine a possible, with little or no distraction to invade your listening pleasure. The applause on these concertos is too loud, blaring and garish and it does last too long. And while I'm on a role, what the heck is wrong with listening to music that's been transferred to a computer? Does it make it magically better when you "huddle" over an antiquated stereo system? I mean. what the heck? I listen a lot on an iPod. Based on this logic, what mortal sin am I committing? And lastly, the Hess review is right on in calling attention to Rubinstein's recordings. His touch on the keys was unsurpassed artistically. Wish he were still here.