Customer Reviews

Beethoven: The Complete Piano Sonatas

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This collection is one of the finest possessions that any lover of music--classical or otherwise-- could possibly own. Alfred Brendel's interpretation of Beethoven's serious, probing piano works is in my opinion among the greatest interpretive achievements of the 20th century, and these recordings capture Brendel's performance in a luminous, ambient sonic wonderland that I find all but overwhelming. You will be drawn into a poetic and reflective space that will astound, enchant, and disturb you... consider Brendel's statement about the slow movement of the Moonlight Sonata, hideously sentimentalized by most artists: in Brendel's words, it's "a mystic realm of awe and shuddering." Think about this, and listen to Brendel's interpretation, and you'll have a great start on this rich, deep, expansive collection of total artistry. Avoiding bombast, Brendel lays bare the incredible architecture that underlies Beethoven's work, and in so doing Brendel fully unleashes Beethoven's artistic and emotional power, a world of musical romance and argumentation that begins to speak to you with an eloquence ranging far beyond the complexities of speech. With Brendel as your guide, you are ushered into a world in which you fully perceive Beethoven's creative genius; before you opens a world of depth and insight and enchantment and meaning. This recording belongs in the library of any serious lover of classical music--and indeed, of any person who believes that music and its performance speak with eloquence of something that is inexpressably deep and meaningful about human existence, something that only music can fully describe. It's very hard to put into words... just listen. A final note: the overwhelming power of this collection isn't a mere matter of sonic trickery; four of the performances are live performances selected by Brendel himself as superior to the studio recordings, despite the live performances' inferior acoustics; believe me, you won't care. (The audiences are very quiet, which doesn't surprise me; undoubtedly, they were drawn into Brendel's performances to the point of reverence.) Every one of the performances in this collection draws you into a world in which every single note penned by Beethoven matters deeply, and Brendel's artistry is such that, somehow, you understand why.

Brendel is not the flashiest of pianists: generally, he eschews bombast. There are those who will prefer a greater sense of physical excitement, especially in movements like the finale of the Hammerklavier Sonata (Op. 106). But there is never any exaggeration, or excessive underlining of points: one gets the feeling listening to these that there is no-one standing between yourself and the music.

The piano sound is, generally, very successfully captured, and Brendel's tone and clarity of line are exquisite. He gives the early sonatas their proper weight (listen, for instance, to the tragic intensity of the slow movement of Op. 10 No. 3); gives an absolutely sensational performance of - amongst others - the Pastoral Sonata (Op. 28); and as for those visionary late sonatas... there are several great recordings of these, but none more satisfying than these.

The liner notes, incidentally, are by the distinguished Beethoven scholar William Kinderman, and are excellent. If I were forced to live with only one item from my CD collection, this box would be it.

I have never heard anything like Alfred Brendel's recording. It is absolutely the best Beethoven I have ever heard. Alfred Brendel is the best Beethoven interpreter in the world and this is the definitive recording. The slow movements, in particular, are interpreted beyond comparison. I've heard Barenboim, Schnabel, Ashkenazy, and many others, but none compare to the supreme beauty and passion that Brendel puts into his interpretation. The fact that they're digital makes it all the more worthwhile to buy this glorious cycle. Don't be daunted by the price, believe me, it will be among the very best, if not the best purchace of a recording you will ever make.

There can be no serious doubt that these are among the distinguished performances by any musician on disk. Brendel recorded this cycle early in his career for Vox, then once again for Philips in the 80's; this last cycle, very likely the last he will ever record, exhibits Brendel, a magisterial musician, at the zenith of his genius. Comparisons with other great cycles, while inevitable, do little to point up the particular maturities of these readings. There are, of course, many ways of doing these sonatas. Schnabel is electrifying if a bit rushed on occasion, and often somewhat approximate in his fingerwork. Richard Goode has, perhaps, more rhythmic urgency, flexibility, and (where appropriate, particularly in the opus 2 sonatas) wit. Brendel's forte is in the elegant intellectual clarity of his playing, the sonic beauty, and a respect for the music that communicates itself instantly in the attention he gives to voicing, balance within a chord, to the shaping of phrase, and (most impressively perhaps) to the overall architecture of a movement. The clarity of his playing is nearly unexampled even among the very greatest Beethoven pianists (Backhaus, Arrau, Solomon, Ashekenazy). Goode alone among contemporary pianists gives as much attention to clarity (if not beauty) of tone, separation of voices, lucidity, intellectual and emotional meaning. The more intelligent the listener, the less apt he or she is to seek to stand above and evaluate these radiantly beautiful performances, and more apt, by concentrated listening, to absorb their beauty and learn from them.

Alfred Brendel has diligently worked his entire life striving for a perfect understanding of the great 32 sonatas of Beethoven. I believe he has reached this point. Within this amazing box set is the most sensitive and acurate playing I have ever heard. I agree with a former reviewer about the incredible playing of the "pastoral" sonata. This sonata has always been my favourite of the "gentle" sonatas of Beethoven. But, upon hearing Brendels rendition.... I was simply astounded. This is not to say that this is the only gem in the collection... there are 32 wonderful renditions (plus that wonderful andante!) each one stands head and shoulders above any other I have heard. If you want to hear what I believe is the most acurate playing of Beethoven, get this now. It will never dissapoint, and will provide a lifetime of enjoyment. Loving congradulations to Beethoven and Brendel!

You have to have the Beethoven piano sonatas in your collection. You really do. Beethoven's nine symphonies get the attention, and deservedly so, for radically changing music forever, for elevating musical expression beyond the constraints of the Classical style. Onward. Upward. Beethoven created the first truly transcendent music, radical new harmonies and forms, music where emotional expression takes primacy over form.

But if the symphonies were the extravagant public face of this transformation, the 32 piano sonatas, standing as a single body of work, are the private, personal works that demonstrate Beethoven's development and foreshadow the radical and sublime innovations in form and harmonic structure that would be devoured by generations of aficionados of the symphonies.

So the question isn't whether or not to include the Beethoven piano sonatas in your collection, but rather which collection. I'll give my five stars the Brendel.

If you are listening to a musical performance for the purposes of enjoying a virtuostic performance, you want the musician to feel free to interpret, to snub the composer's purpose and motivation in the name of passion and talent. That's precisely what you want if you are listening to Liszt's Waltzes or Rachmaninoff's Preludes for example. No disrespect. (I love Liszt's Waltzes but find I can't quite dance to them) But if you are listening to music to appreciate brilliant composition, then you want someone more faithful than ostentatious. That's certainly what you want in your complete collection of Beethoven's piano sonatas. (Why? Because Beethoven was a master composer, greater than any before or after by several orders of magnitude. We've been through this before.)

That's what you get with Brendel. I saw him perform a Mozart piano concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he wrote his own cadenzas. He didn't bounce around and make funny ecstatic faces, he didn't squint and gaze off into the heavens as if receiving the music from above. He just played and played well. He wasn't a statue, he was moving around and enjoying himself but not in a showy way, just in service of the music. His personal touches were subtle. He wasn't a ham until the very end, when he came out again and again for more applause and hammed it up for an encore of his cadenzas.

You don't have to thank me. Just enjoy, then turn on somebody else.

Ludwig Van's piano sonatas are one of the best piano works collections that a classical music buff might be able to find around. I recently bought it and I have to say I am more than happy with it. And I really mean HAPPY. And Brendel's interpretation is one of the reasons why.

As a person, as well as a pianist, Alfred Brendel is not a showboater, a pyrotechnician or even a virtuoso in the conventional sense of the word, and he has never been. Widely noted for never having played Chopin's music, but one of the few very best when it comes to the piano works of Beethoven and Mozart, Brendel's genius as a pianist resides in the subtle alchemy of a perfectly weighted octave or a rest stretched an extra microsecond or two, more than any other technicality. Whether he plays Beethoven's piano sonatas, his five piano concertos, or other magnificent piano works by Mozart, Haydn or Schubert, Brendel's performances are less interpretations than true conspiracies with the composer himself. Some find his style flat and unsatisfactory. I find it brilliant.

I am writing this review on 5 January 2011, the very day of Alfred Brendel's 80th anniversary.

I think there are no other composers dearer to his heart and more suitable to his style than Beethoven and Schubert. Maybe Haydn's humorous subtexts or Mozart's floating cantabiles could appeal Brendel's musical interests at a comparable extent as - and come close to - his fondness of serving Beethoven and Schubert. However, these four giants of the Viennese Classicism have long been his four aces so that Brendel's reputation owes them its most consistent part. Therefore it is not a surprise that he recorded the complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas no less than three times, each at a different age, in a constantly ascendant development as a performing artist.

An always-elegant touch and a very subtle insight helped Brendel - during a longish career, spanning 60 years on stage - give benchmark renditions of those giants' masterpieces to be cherished by his large number of admirers. If one adds the flattering title of "thinker at the piano", earned from worldwide audiences and critics alike, this could explain the top position Alfred Brendel secured for himself among the contemporary pianists. His erudition overlapped his keen sensitivity and infallible musical intuitions, as to supply a seductively witty, serene, perfumed style of playing. So personal, though scrupulously rigorous with regard to the score.

This recorded cycle of complete Beethoven sonatas dates from Brendel's full maturity, being recorded and released in the first half of the 1990s, a period of great achievements in his artistic life. His legendary classical poise is nowhere better highlighted than here, in his last recorded traversal of Beethoven sonatas. Each of the 10 CD asserts for his conception. According to it a masterpiece should not be forced to mould the performer's obsessions or affinities - instead the performer has to find its essence and look for both the closest empathy with composer's intentions and the most natural re-thinking the score in its own terms. Otherwise, the masterpiece can well be considered betrayed. Any interpretation should remain within this ineffable contour and serve the truths of the piece. It is exactly what Brendel achieves here. In a magisterially refined manner!

Guided by Alfred Brendel, immersing in the all-embracing inner world of Beethoven becomes a pure delight!

I come in peace but as a decided unbeliever. The lead reviewer has gotten 100 readers to agree that Brendel's latest Beethoven cycle contains some of "the greatest interpretive achievements of the 20th century." Total bosh, of course. Any knowledgeable, experienced collector can set up rivals to any single sonata that Brendel plays and exhibit quite plainly that he is less imaginative than Richter, less authoritative than Schnabel, less powerful than Gilels, and so on. What Brendel represents is a single branch of Beethoven interpretation that is usually known as "classicist." Along with Kempff, Richard Goode, and Andras Schiff, among others, Brendel the classicist more often looks backward to Mozart and Haydn than ahead to the Romantics, even though, ironically, the latter owe everything to Beethoven.

I do not favor the classicist view beyond early-period Beethoven, and it's astonishing to me that my view -- which was overwhelmingly dominant a generation ago -- has waned so entirely. Schnabel, Richter, Gilels, Backhaus, Edwin Fischer, and Serkin cast long shadows, but they seem to be relegated to the category of monuments. Far more influential is the clean, precise, correct style of Brendel and his school. One can see why. Correctness is easy, originality is hard. Precision can be spotted by a beginner; it takes experience to appreciate depth. I'm not here to disparage Brendel but to appreciate him where he belongs, as the first among the classicists.

After spending a few hours comparing some representative sonatas (e.g., the Tempest, Appassionata, and Op. 101) I came away with no greater enthusiasm for a style that seems anemic to me. But Goode and even Kempff run second to Brendel if this is the style you favor. He has more oomph and imagination; he is less likely to lapse into dull stretches of faceless note-spinning. A saving grace of the classicist style is elegance, and Brendel possesses more elegance than his rivals, excepting Kempff at his best. Andras Schiff is more problematic, because he can be quite quirky; correctness isn't one of his salient qualities as it is with Brendel. But to my taste, all of them seriously underplay the middle- and late-period sonatas from th 'Waldstein' and 'Appasisonata' onwards.

I imagine this whole review has been an exercise in futility, but I toss it out like a message in a bottle. It will be a frosty day in June before I lay out money for Brendel's Beethoven (I listen at online sites), but he deserves his high regard and long-held status.

Esta gran realización pianistica, ES UNA MAS de las tantas obras en que Alfred Brendel deja de manifiesto que existe el verdadero equilibrio entre la perfección y la sensibilidad iterpretativa. Al analizar técnicamente cada una de las Sonatas, se aprecia la maravilla de sus Apoyaturas, Tiempos, Ritenutos, Fortes, Piannisimos, y otros componentes propios de la estructura musical, que hacen concluir, SIN LUGAR A DUDA, que Alfred Brendel INTERNALIZA Y COMPRENDE a Ludwing Van Beethoven en su grado más profundo, tanto en su Humanidad, como en el verdadero objetivo de dejar un Legado a las generaciones venideras. Se logra finalmente una verdadera interpretación que cumple fielmente con el concepto: "audicionar a Ludwing Van Beethoven a través de Alfred Brendel"