Customer Reviews

Beethoven: The Piano Sonatas, Vol. 5 (Opp. 31 and 53)

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Andras Schiff continues his impressive Beethoven Sonatas series. It is characterized by that rare combination of keen sensitivity to musical expression, fidelity to text and meticulous attention to detail. The articulation and lively crispness of execution is a sheer delight. There are many surprising insights that are completely convincing. Of the many great Beethoven Sonatas recordings, this can be most recommended to students as an example of how to bring the text alive without any exaggeration yet with sensitivity and depth of musical expression.

The booklets in this series are of special interest. Andras Schiff shares his outlook and insights on these works and we get a glimpse of how great interpretations evolve. For piano students as well as for lovers of these works, Andras Schiff's Beethoven Sonata series is to be highly recommended!

Janos Cegledy, Tokyo

Don't miss Andras Schiff's excellent lectures about Beethoven's sonatas. The perfect accompaniment for this cycle, available for free from the Guardian UK website (google: schiff guardian uk).

A recording in the series of all Beethoven Sonatas by Andras Schiff, the current authority both through his extensive scholarship on this subject as well as his dynamic and insightful performances. Impressive are his assured use of the enormous Beethoven intended tempi, off-set by his frequently employed non-legato style, followed by lyrical development sections and dramatic interjections. The almost orchestral passages are played revering the majestic. This series will be the Beethoven Sonata series for the Millenium. Largo con gran expressione!

Andras Schiff has garnered mostly raves for his entire career, and for most of that career he has either bored me with his clipped, detached style or driven me away with chilly aloofness. His Beethoven manages to combine the worst of thse traits in this installment of his complete sonata cycle. He's clipped, punchy, anti-romantic, and detached. Yet the New York Times praises Schiff's "elegant pianism, consummate artistry and selfless dedication." Selfless? What in the world does that even mean? In any event, Schiff has won a place in the top echelon of pianists -- in other words, he's found his audience -- and unbelievers like me are free to stay away. When Horowitz was far more renowned than Schiff will ever be, there were music lovers who said no.

Here in Vol. 5 of his Beethoven cycle, he has plenty of personal ideas, and the critics, I imagine, will either love or hate them. The main attraction is the 'Waldstein' Sonta Op. 53, the most ambitious middle period sonata after the 'Appassionata.' But you'd never know it from Schiff's straight-ahead, no-nonsense performance. Setting a basic tempo and chopping away does the first movement no favors. The brief Introduzione to the third movement lacks mystery, although schiff has enough touch in this delicate, spare music. The Allegretto that follows is slow to the point of sounding flat-footed, and the same placid sluggishness continues into the finale. If you want to hear imaginaiton and vitality from a modern pianist, listen to Pletnev's live Waldstein on his Carnegie Hall recital (DG).

In sum, Schiff's Beethoven gave me no pleasure this time around, despite all those critical encomiums.

P.S. -- If readers assume that I am dead set against Schiff, please refer to my reviews of other installments in his Beethoven cycle.

Andras Schiff continues to thrill with his Beethoven Piano Sonata cycle. His lecture series on these works on the Guardian UK website explains the philosophy behind this cycle. More Urtext. Less affectation. His Op 31 is illuminating. There is something so opulent in Schiff's austerity - it is as though he strips the pieces down to their inner beauty. The Andante Favori encore of the Waldstein is a true bonus.