Customer Reviews

Beethoven: Complete Works for Piano & Cello

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While there have been countless recordings of Beethoven's Cello sonatas - Schnabel and Fournier, Richter and Rostropovich, Cortot and Fournier - this album sticks out in my mind. While today's musical sobriety has left us with many boring performances, this album proves that relatively stright interpretations leave a great deal of room for flexibility. There is nothing offensive and everything is in good taste. I must add that the 3rd sonata is hair raising and electrifying in its rhythmic drive. Brendel has proven to us once again (with the help of his son) that his clear conceptions lead to great music. This album is not to be missed.

This version of Beethoven's extraordinary set of 5 cello and piano sonatas has been rightly praised. Bendel father and son play beautifully, in total harmony. It must be so rewarding for a father to be able to play these eternally youthful masterpieces with his son. The recording is excellent and the tone of the instruments just lovely. I did feel occasionally I needed this extra bit of momentum, the hell for leather quality that Richter and Rostropovich bring to these works, but these are admirable performances. It annoyed me a bit that the sonatas are not in their Opus number sequence, but the sets of variations are just wonderful. I have to admit that when Beethoven brings his own extraordinary twist to Papageno's tune from the Magic Flute in the concluding variation, Alfred Brendel had me chuckling with delight to myself. Inspiring.

I will have to listen again to my Deutsche Grammophon recordings of these same Beethoven pieces which were recorded nearly fifty years ago by legendary musicians pianist Friedrich Gulda and cellist Pierre Fournier; their performances I truly regard as definitive for these very works. However, I am equally impressed with the polished, emotionally understated playing shown by both Brendels, father and son, in this relatively new Philips recording. Distinguished pianist Alfred Brendel shows more of his typically sublime, technically proficient playing, in which he emphasizes Beethoven's ties to his mentors and contemporaries Mozart and especially, Haydn. However, without question, the real surprise is the superb playing from his son, the young cellist Adrian Brendel, who demonstrates that he is artistically as gifted a musician as his well-known father. My own personal favorites are their elegant playing of the first third cello sonatas, in which both truly shine individually in dramatic, yet still emotionally understated, turns as soloists, but there are truly ample examples of their exquisite playing throughout this two-CD set. So I am inclined to agree with another reviewer that theirs is truly a 21st Century Beethoven works for piano and cello definitive recording, and one that deserves favorable comparison to the great ones of the last century, including my own personal favorite from Gulda and Fournier.

I bought this endlessly fascinating recording about a year after its release in 2005 (please forgive my lack of insight!) and it has never ceased to be a source of constant joy and satisfaction... even after 6 years and countless listenings. If anything, it has only become more precious.

The five Cello Sonatas presented here are the best I've ever heard - even trumping the very greatest from the past - and the Variations... oh, the Variations are just exquisite and gorgeous beyond measure.

I'm completely at a lose for words!

It's a fact that the truly "great" recordings are always the most difficult to review. It's NOT because of their flawlessness - far from it! - but because they just seem to dance along with such grace and abandon and unspeakable beauty that the reviewer becomes dumfounded! I am, admittedly, less than impervious to such critical shortcomings.

It almost goes without saying that I recommend these marvelous "Father & Son" recordings to you with unreserved enthusiasm...

...and I also propose a challenge:

Just TRY to listen to the 12 Variations on "See the Conqu'ring Hero Comes" from Judas Maccabaeus WITHOUT breaking into constant smiles of joy at the end of each variation... You see, I just knew you couldn't!

Even if you already own ten recordings of Beethoven's Cello Sonatas, make a special place in your library for this one. Just buy it, bask in the genius that is the family Brendel, and give thanks that you were alive when such magical music making blessed the earth!

Michael L. Davis

The Brendel father/son pair showed such excellent ensemble playing that it appears they are one. This recording provides the wonderful combination of beautiful compositions well performed.

No complaints about the performance and recording quality itself (see fullsome praise in all other reviews at time of writing).

But no-one mentions how Alfred moans and groans and hums all the time and this is REALLY annoying in the quieter passages (take for example the opening Adagio of the Op5 No.2 on CD1:1).

Also, why does the order of the works on the CDs have to be virtually random? I.e., CD 1 has Sons 2, then 4, then 3, then variations; CD 2 has variations, then 5, then 1, then more variations. Bizzare... Perhaps it was to fit it on 2 CDs, but even then the order within the CDs could have been better.

Anyway, if you want a Glenn-Gould-like background from Alfred, then you will like this; otherwise, avoid...