Customer Reviews

Beethoven: Kreutzer Sonata; Franck: Sonata

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

 

 

I've always considered the Perlman-Ashkenazy "Kreutzer" the best on record. I don't really like Ashkenazy as a pianist, however, and looked forward to this release of Argerich recording the work with a decent violinist (i.e. not the thin-toned Kremer). Unfortunately Perlman's performance is not as polished as his earlier version with Ashkenazy...his chords are not as awe-inspiring and his tone is not as pure. Argerich does offer much more exciting pianism (in my opinion) than Ashkenazy though. So I'd still go for Ashkenazy-Perlman if you're finicky about perfect violin playing.

No wonder this recording has appeared on over 30 critics' top albums of 1999 lists. This live recording captures two magnificent artists at the top of their games. Perfection is for the studio -- this is gritty, great music making!

As the reviewers below suggested, Argerich is not at her best here, even though Perlman is not quite bad compared to his recent live performances where he tends to be absent minded/too much easy going.

If you would like to hear Argerich at her best in these masterpieces, try the following recordings:

Gidon Kremer(vl.) and Argerich (Beethoven) on DG, James Galway(fl.) and Argerich (Franck) on RCA, Mischa Maisky (Cel.) and Argerich (Franck) on EMI.

In every recording above, she sounds much more inspired and precise.

Argerich also recorded Franck with Ricci (vl.) on a minor label, but this is not recommended as Ricci sounds too brittle and shallow.

Who knows where the Amazon reviewer learned English ("on the Franck sonata"?), but he makes good points. The microphone placement gives almost equal weight to the violin and the piano, which is so unrealistic that it is very hard to find the proper volume level, but then, Beethoven created a problem when he wrote a violin sonata of such heroic ambition and length (this performance takes almost 35 min.). The musicians are forced to try and make the violin compete in sound with a concert grand. Matters aren't helped by the hardness of the sonics on this CD, where loud passages become grating unless you turn the volume so far down that the piano is recessive.

Musically, however, we are given a superb "Kreutzer" from July, 1998, at the summer festival in Saratoga Springs. Argerich delivers a fiery, imaginative account of the piano part, and she has inspired Perlman to match her heightened mood -- as a result, he can't fall back on smooth execution but flies along with patches of spontaneous roughness that is far more appealing. Comparisons to Perlman's famous earlier account with Ashkenazy on Decca are discounted for me because Argerich is so far superior. The second movement theme and variations, rarely a high point in concert, are turned into a wonderful display of variety and rhythmic vivacity here. Among the recordings I prize, only the historic Szigeti-Bartok from the Library of Congress surpasses this one, but it comes in truly wretched sound. No taste of treacle form this powerful performance, which matches the famous one form Richter and Oistrakh, while far surpassing it in sound.

At a total timing of 59 min., they could have afforded a third work to supplement the thrice-familiar Franck sonata. It's hard to complain about hearing two masterpieces from such great performers, however. Beethoven published the "Kreutzer" as a piano sonata with violin obliggato, and in the Franck one could argue that the piano part is the more interesting. (Julia Fischer, the brilliant young German violinist, has also appeared playing the pianist's role, and she has said she enjoys it more.) Perlman eschews soupiness and begins with an elegant lyric line that Argerich matches with enough nuanced rubato that the music feels fresh in their hands. Being who she is, she cannot help but burst out rhapsodically whenever there is a solo piano passage -- very welcome it is, even if our ears are drawn away from the violin.

OK, sure, this is a live concert (recorded on July 30, 1998 at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center), and in such occasions there is often a measure of give and take and risk-taking that may step over the line. But I think it is also a problem with Argerich, very similar with the piano to an interpretive quirk often remarked with Anne-Sophie Mutter on the fiddle: they want to charge the music with so much expression and make it such a "personal" statement that they start fussing over details and tampering with the written score. Does Argerich find the gently rolling 9/8 rhythm written by Franck in the first movement too simple and predictable that she needs to change the first bar into a binary pointed eighth-note sixteenth-note? And is it because she's got free rein (the first four bars are for piano alone) that she takes a tempo twice as slow as Perlman's when he finally enters? Sure, it establishes a nice, dreamy mood, but also a jarring discrepancy with Perlman's entry. Then when the music gets a bit tougher (1:36, "a tempo sempre forte and largamente") and the piano is again left alone, rather than maintaining a steady pulse Argerich starts brutalizing the lines as if it was, I don't know, Schumann's Piano Sonatas or Phantasie (which she has done so well) or already the Sonata's second movement. And as the two partners approach the climax around 3:50 they accelerate significantly, rather than just building tension through dynamics. YES, Franck's music does begin very simply, and that doesn't make it less beautiful and valuable, and you don't need to toss it around to make it expressive. I'm all for probing beneath the surface, but trying to unveil details that simply aren't there will only distort the piece's essence. Perlman and Argerich then hurl into the second movement at a faster pace still than Heifetz (in his second version, live from 1972, Heifetz Collection, Vol. 46: The Final Recital, even faster than the first one, 1937, with Rubinstein, Jascha Heifetz Recital), and with much turbulence, especially from Argerich - a little too much so I think for the music's underlying classicism, but after all this is the turbulent movement and it can take it. I wouldn't say that Perlman leads here, but he bravely rides the storm as very few could. Yee-haah! At the beginning of the third movement Argerich does it again, changing the rhythmic values - and throughout tempos are so distorted and played accordion with, it must be one of the ugliest readings of that movement I have heard. I had thought Heifetz was as fast as it would get - true, by a second (again Heifetz' farewell concert in 1972 is a few seconds faster than his 1937 recording), and Heifetz at least was consistent. The passage in sixteenth-notes starting at 2:26 feels rushed rather than flowing, and the ensuing meditative section at 3:23 exudes little sense of repose: anguish rather than meditation. I guess if you want to say something favorable you might argue that the approach exudes a welcome dramatic tension and Romantic turbulence. I s'pose the finale can take that kind of urgent approach and Argerich's Beethovenian (or is it Brahmsian?) muscularity - it highlights its exuberant, even turbulent joy. But again the pianist seizes any opportunity for vulgar spotlighting, such as at 1:55 when the left-hand intones the theme: rather than lovingly caress it, she just pounds - hey, look at me y'all, I'm there, it's me! Well, yes, she's there, and in the face of that kind of presence the missed chords at the end that another commentator has remarked are NOT what matters.

And, needless to say, mine is a minority view: judging from the applause, the audience seemed very, very happy. I do prefer the approach in Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, but that may be because I have not done the same kind of thorough comparative listening as with Franck.

Perlman left historical versions of Franck's (in 1968, Franck/Brahms: Violin Sonata/Horn Trio) and Beethoven's (1973-5) Sonatas (Beethoven: The Violin Sonatas), with Ashkenazy, and they remain the classics. This recording seems to me a showcase for the pianist rather than the fiddler - but it is a tribute to Perlman that he isn't dwarfed in the process. So this disc is really for the admirers of Argerich, and a testimony of her art - warts and all.

Neither performer is really up to their personal par on either piece, with perlman easing his way through both sonatas (although he does put forth a bit more effort on the Franck) and with argerich putting in sloppy and unmemorable performances on both. Her technique sounds muddled, lacks precision, and her phrasing in parts of the Franck is downright bizarre. I have my own opinions as to how the Franck should be performed, owning most of the recordings out there and having performed it myself. In this instance, it wasn't done justice with a half-hearted, quick run through by these two greats who seem to just want to get it done and get home. For an ultra-romantice, bipolar poetic piece that violently leaps from the depths of morbid depression to the ecstatic and ebullient heights of manic joy, the Franck demands quite a bit from both performers. I have to disagree with several of the reviewers here and say that the piece requires that quite a bit of liberty be taken with tempi throughout--as I mentioned, there's a manic bipolarity at play here and a certain flexibility is required to showcase it in its true "madness". That said, argerich and perlman put on a dynamically passable performance of it, but really fail to capture the essential, edgy passion of the piece. All in all, a forgettable CD. skip it.

Argerich and Perlman are amazing on this CD. This CD has a special place in my CD player. It's a great example of wonderful music.

I have not listened to all of the tracks on this recording. However, I have listened to the Kreutzer Sonata recording. Perlman holds the tempo down ( you can hear Argerich wanting to go full speed) in the first movement- devastatingly slow IMHO. It is evident through the rest of the Kreutzer that the two performers were not on the same page and most likely didn't provide enough time to practice. Dissapointing.

Argerich made a few mistakes! The obvious one is in the last few bars of the Franck finale. (too bad!) In the first exposition of the theme in the 2nd movement (Franck), Argerich also failed to maintained a steady tempo, which is essential. Moreover, the melodic line is not brought up consistently. I wonder if Argerich actually practiced for this performance!