Customer Reviews

Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos. 9- Kreutzer, & 10, Op. 47,96

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

 

 

At first, I have to say that I'm not a native speaker. so i'm not good at expressing my opinion on this incredible disc fluently as you, Americans do. so please take this in consideration. I have all these beethoven viloin sonata by kremer/argercich. and of all those discs, this one including no.9 is the best. the character of kremer's violin,powerful,somewhat hysterical,is so fit well to this sonata. kremer's technique, as you 're very aware, is incredible. and argerich's piano , not only supportive but also contending is, I think, going along with beethoven's composition intension. if you expect to listen to some powerful, inspiring and knock-out music , then BUY IT! For me, this is my favorite kremer disc.

I bought this CD for the 10th Sonata, as I already had two versions of the famous Kreutzer. However, both performances are really superb. Kremer is a great violinist. He does not avoid controversy. Just listen to his recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto with its outrageous cadenza and you will know what I mean. However, in this recording he plays the music straight and the results are quite beautiful. A wonderful recording of two great masterpieces.

As I expected it might, this recording divides critical opinion. The Beethoven Op.47 "Kreutzer" Sonata is such a famous piece that its groundbreaking characteristics are often forgotten. Often abandoning classical tradition, especially in the slow movement "Theme and Variations", it is a piece to be listened to with wonder and amazement, even long after its composition and I would rank it alongside Schubert's "Trout" as one of the most delightful and listenable of all classical chamber works.

The performers Martha Argerich and Gidon Kremer are two virtuoso soloists renowned for their extreme technical ability and fast pace. How ever would they perform together? Right from the outset the only word to describe this duet is "electric". Their playing is both light and brilliant, very far from the more "romantic" playing of say, Menuhin and Kempff, it is at once classical and extremely dashing and I have to say almost unique of all the performances I have heard of this wonderful piece for its sheer brilliance. In the 20/21st century tradition it is full of extreme dramatic contrast and if at times one does get the impression that each is trying to outdo the other in technical excellence, this was after all also an aspect of many "romantic" performances and gives this piece an almost concerto-like quality. Every time I listen to it I marvel. The almost filigree quality of the slow movement and the subtle changes of rhythm and emphasis are a true musical wonder. It's not the most philosophical or reflective of recordings I have ever heard - Kremer and Argerich were enjoying their personal battle too much for that - and I can see why some people don't like it, but for me at any rate it has to rank among the most enjoyable. There will certainly be no yawns, whatever you think!
The Sonata No.10 is more solid Beethoven and less flashy. I feel that Argerich and Kremer felt their opportunities here more limited and the solid, classical performance is faultless if a trifle underweight. But on the strength of the dazzling "Kreutzer" this gets my 5 stars.

More than one reviewer trashing this recording said that it was this pair's "anti-Romanticism" that completely destroyed whatever grace they may have been able to infuse on their interpretation. I would say that the problem, as in many recordings with the mercurial Argerich, is her refusal to let anyone else take even a little part of the show from her. The result is that she tries to get ahead of poor Gideon, one of the few really talented living violinists out there, turning andante or allegro-like movements into prestos, with barely any attention paid to dynamics. It reminds me of that famous cartoon of someone playing the PIANOforte with hammers, and makes me wonder if the instruments she plays in have to be overhauled right away because of all that too-passionate banging.

Kremer is better known for his interpretations of modernist and post-modernist composers like (specially) Schnittke, but critics are wrong in their portrayal of him as too cold for romantic music - they should all listen to his recordings of the Beethoven (the one with Harnoncourt and the Euro. Chamb. Orch. has some new, pretty good cadenzas composed by Kremer himself) and Tchaikovsky concertos. Both of them show that Kremer knows how to put passion on his playing... without losing his cool, which is what often happens with Argerich.

This isn't the first time I have had the Argerich experience: the same thing happened in the otherwise excellent recording of Schumman's ensemble works she did with some of her friends, live at the small hall of the Concertgebouw. It was her colleague Alexander Rabinovitch that stood out for that subtlety of interpretation she lacks almost completely. I fear that all that technical virtuosity goes to waste when it isn't tempered by concern for the intentions of the composer, not that this means that there's such thing as an absolutely faithful standard for interpreting Beethoven or anyone else. When a soloist dragoons her agent into stuffing two or more full concertos by different composers into *half* a night's programme, which is what Argerich did last year at the Carnegie (it was more shocking to read in the TONY that it was possible she wouldn't show up at all), I fear she may be following Battle's path into artistic oblivion.

Call it alaienation, I dn't know, but when they got together, Argerich and Kremer found themselves of like mind: Beehoven should be performed with no romance or heroism, with stark, edgy tone and banging accents. It's not my kind of Beethoven at all, so I will stck with Perlamn/Ashkenazy on Decca for both works.