Customer Reviews

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" - Choral Fantasy / R. Levin, Gardiner

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I listened to these recordings the idea of concerto (to compare/contrast the soloist and the orchestra; even pit them against each other) immediately came to my mind.

Finally I felt that there was a real concerto here. In the past when listening to "modern" orchestral recordings of Beethoven piano concerti I felt that there was no "struggle" between the two forces. There were "big" solo statements and big orchestral statements and big tutti statements, and as much as I liked them something was missing.

The period instruments, including the period piano, made it happen. The period piano is a weaker more delicate instrument than a modern concert grand. The period orchestra had more clarity and a less massive sound. Now the two came together to make a real concerto.

The period piano striving (how Beethoven!) to do more than it really could do. The orchestra attempting to immitate the piano's delicacy and not quite succeeding. Now there was a story here. Now there was art.

I also almost laughed out loud to think of Beethoven REALLY strecthing the limits of his (period) piano and orchestra. Beethoven isn't so much of a "stretch" for the modern orchestra as it is for the period orchestra. The period performance makes Beethoven more real and human to me because I feel more of his reaching and striving.

Gardiner may not have got it exactly as Beethoven intended, but I think much more of the spirit of Beethoven is here than in any recording with modern instruments.

Levin is a wonder, with technique and improvisational skills to dazzle those who have become used to stodgy performances of these wonderful works on modern instruments. The speed of some of the movements is breathtaking, but it always sounds right. (I wonder whether they are being played as Beethoven marked them -- often rejected as "too fast.") Gardner, of course, is precisely the right conductor and partner in this recreation of what this music probably sounded like when first played. Spectacular!

This is one of the most intruiging CD's in my music library. It is VERY highly recommended. The Emperor Concerto is lively (a big understatement), and brilliantly performed. The tempi are stunning; the second movement takes a little longer than 6 minutes (the normal time is about 9 minutes, give or take a minute). This is mainly due to the capabilities of the fortepiano vs. the pianoforte. The ORR sounds as superb as they always do. As this is a war-horse, and there is no truly "best recording," I'd compliment this version with performamces by Pollini, Rubinstein, Kempff, or Brendel. This, however, is a VERY good recording that is well worth owning.

Now the Choral Fantasy. This piece has been overshadowed by larger similar works, like the Missa Solemnis and Symphony No. 9. Consequently, this is one of the most underappreciated pieces in the Beethoven repertoire. The performance here is BY FAR the best recordings of this piece I have ever heard. As if having Beethoven's version of the opening cadenza wasn't good enough, you also get two completely improvised openings that are stellar. The chorus and orchestra here are still up to the ORR standards.

Overall, I think this CD is an essential part of any serious classical music library.

An absolutely stunning performance of both the Fantasie and the Es-Dur Concerto. Hard to overestimate. Should occupy a very prestigious place in any serious CD collection. The two alternative intros in the Betthoven's Op.80 are really a joy to hear! Bravo!

This recording is great. After hearing Gardiner's recording of the symphonies, he became my standard for Beethoven. This recording holds up that standard very well.

My focus for this review is the concerto.

The choice to perform on a fortepiano was a great choice. Of course it sounds different than a modern piano but I never got the sense that it didn't fit. In fact, by the time the piano made its first thematic entrance, I had forgotten that it wasn't a modern instrument and was not bothered by the sound in the least. I really appreciated the energy captured by both piano and orchestra in the outer movements. The subtle shadings and tenderness during the middle movement was very good. This second movement is far better than just about all modern recordings I've heard. (An exception being Horowitz and a live performance by Stephen Hough.)

I do think that Beethoven was thinking ahead of his time when writing this work. The textrue of both orchestra and piano is very well suited to a modern ensemble, however, I'd hate for someone to shy away from this recording because of the fortepiano. Levin is able to get a great and powerful sound from the piano that I think Beethoven would be proud to hear. (Assuming that he could in fact hear!)

I would recommend this recording for anybody looking for a copy of this concerto.

This recording and Gardiner's complete Mozart concerti with Bilson are failed experiments. In the laughable Mozart recordings he even makes matters worse by insisting that the piano be "just another instrument" in the orchestra. So we have a "copy" of a primitive fortepiano recorded at a considerable distance. Can this be how Mozart expected to make his name and fame, playing a toy piano way off in the background? It sounds like someone plucking rubber bands. Later fortepianos (e.g. the Grafs from the 1820's) began to develop some tone and volume. But even they cannot hold their own against a full orchestra.

A more interesting experiment than this recording is Levin's recording of a chamber version of Beethoven's 4th with a handful of accompanying instruments. It's no substitute for the real thing, but at least it works on its own terms.

Gardiner and Levine are A1 performers of Beethoven's music, and this recording is a very good example.

John Eliot Gardiner is one of the most talented conductors at applying a traditional interpretation to Beethoven's romantic pieces. These piano performances by Gardiner however are marred by a certain twist of irony as to their faithful representation which makes this work rather subpar compared to other Beethoven interpretations for the conventional piano. Although his use of a smaller orchestral ensemble, period instruments, and a more passionate interpretation of Beethoven's revolutionary pieces sounds great with purely his symphonic or choral works, Gardiner's use of the piano forte for the piano concertos actually undermines the instrumentational intentions of Beethoven himself whom he seeks to more accurately perform.

As many know, Beethoven suffered from gradual deafness and was also primarily a virtuoso at the piano much like Mozart. This passion for the piano and his deafness are what inspired him to make major contributions to piano compositions mainly in the domains of range and tonality of which the piano forte has none. That is why Beethoven absolutely hated the piano forte as an instrument and composed many of his sonatas and concertos so that they could be played by a Steinway piano which didn't exist until the end of his life. The piano forte is hard enough to hear to an undamaged ear and I can't even imagine how irritated Beethoven must have been being almost deaf trying to perform on a piano instrument of such limited range in scale and tonality. Beethoven was actually notorious for smashing one after another of his many piano fortes simply out of frustration in just trying to get the right tone out of them. Beethoven was really one of the biggest tinkerers and experimenters with the piano: often taking his pianos apart, sawing off their legs, keeping them on the floor, etc. For Gardiner then to keep a piano forte for a 'correct and traditional' interpretation of Beethoven is therefore defeating because that's not the instrument Beethoven composed his piano concertos for. The notation and arrangements in Beethoven's piano works in and of themselves make that plainly evident. The only reason Beethoven performed his piano works on the piano forte is because he had nothing else to work with during his lifetime. In a sense Beethoven was like a 19th century moving man using a horse buggy for his work while all along having plans on how to move more stuff with a pickup or semi that still didn't exist. The same is generally true with Mozart's piano works as well. Following up on Mozart's own dissatisfactions in the piano forte for which he didn't really compose his piano works for either. Beethoven continued working on his original revisions to Mozat's pieces and his own to adapt them for a modern piano that had yet to be created. Gardiner's piano forte interpretations for these two composers. Gardiner is here simply recreating more the historical setting of the piece as opposed to truly performing according to the intentions of Beethoven. It therefore fails in that neither composer created these pieces with the conventional piano forte in mind to begin with. Not only that, but when you hear the pieces with such a piano you will certainly understand the dissatisfactions of Mozart and Beethoven. The piano forte is really only suited for solo or chamber music but not symphonic works where it is barely recognizable due to its virtual muteness of tone and resonance as well as its limited range in scales.

Although Gardiner is particularly good with purely symphonic works of Beethoven or other early Romantic composers, I have found his piano forte performances for Beethoven to be lacking in every respect just as with Mozart's. For those looking for great piano performances of Beethoven I would stick to Brendel, Perrhia, or Van Cliburn, who are pretty much the masters of Beethoven as Rubinstein was of later romantics and impressionists such as Chopin and Brahms. Avoid Gardiner's piano concertos for Beethoven or Mozart as they not only sound bad but aren't really what the artists themselves desired for their piano works in the first place. The only thing really traditional then in these performances is that one can understand why composers such as Mozart and especially Beethoven traditionally didn't compose their piano works with a piano forte in mind because of its many deficiencies as an instrument. Why play their pieces with one then?

A lot has to be said in favor of this recording, e.g. the excellent orchestra that makes Beethoven sound as fresh as it gets and has the right size. But no matter what the "authentic performance" people say, the use of a period piano was the wrong choice. The piano part sounds dreadful. Given the fact that we will never be able to "really" reconstruct how this music sounded almost 2 centuries ago (and should we ?), we may as well use a modern concert grand and make the piano part sound satisfactory. I like most of Gardiners recordings -- it's just that he sometimes takes things too far, and this is an example. So we can only hope that Harnoncourt finally gets to record the Beethoven concertos...