Customer Reviews

Complete Keyboard Sonatas 4

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

 

 

First off I want to say that this Naxos series of Scarlatti sonatas, each played by a different pianist, has been uniformly excellent. I would not hesitate to recommend any of the seven volumes (as of this writing) so far.

The CD in question, played by Beatrice Long is somewhat deceptive. My first impression was that it wasn't as brilliant as some of the others in the series. Much of that has to do with the fact that she has chosen for her program some of the slower, longer, more rhapsodic of the sonatas. Upon closer listening, however, I discovered a musician with a lot of imagination and fantasy, a beautiful sound, interesting ornamentation, and a firm grasp of Scarlatti's peculiarly Italian/Iberian sound world. I have found myself listening to this disc over and over recently, and I am always finding new little things in it to admire.

Eventually planned to number over 25 discs, the time to begin collecting this series is now, before the stack gets too high!

Rhythm and transparency, with brilliance in the fingerwork, prevail. This CD (along with Horowitz, Pogorelich, and Andjaparidze, of course) should be the standard used in sorting out future pianists for the Naxos series. This is certainly Scalatti as it should be played.

I would like to enter some personal thoughts. The K4 somehow misses the quitar model which would require a quicker tempo and more flamenco color, The K107 evokes for me, on my piano, fantasies of the Arabian Nights with its beautifully perfumed elegance, soft drums, and measured moorishness. However difficult, the piece should be played gently with no sharp edges.

So, hats off to Beatrice Long! I would welcome her back for another CD in this series

At first, Beatrice Long's performance seemed feckless, but after five more hearings, I think she shows why having a different performer for each of the albums in the Naxos complete Scarlatti sonatas series makes sense.

Another reviewer has noted that she chooses to play the more lyrical sonatas. Yeah, her K 132, especially the closing cadences, is sweet. But it's her whole approach that's lyrical, taking the time to present the classic rise-and-fall phrasing.

She's no wimp, though--the big arpeggiated chords in the second half of K 516 are not grandiose but grand (I like this sonata both ways!). She also shows a very different dimension to K 175. Most players really pound this out. Long stresses the textural contrast and makes me wonder if this might not have been a score The Great Farinelli showed Mozart back in their 1760s visit--I am thinking here of Köchel 310.

Long captures the weariness in K 99 in fine fashion, but some sonatas do not work with the lyrical approach. Long's version of K 519 can't compete with Pinnock or Pletnev, but nobody's perfect.

Long's album is a perfect counterbalance to the aggressive approach of Michael Lewin. These two volumes are the cream, the Yang and Yin of the Naxos series through vol. 7.

The previous reviewer must have been talking about the wrong cd because K433 isn't even on this recording.

This performance is full of drama, magic, grandeur and ingenuity aplenty. It's lovely. I've played it over and over. The sontatas are amazing and this performance is outstanding.

Making a career and some recordings in the USA, Beatrice Long features as the fourth pianist to contribute a volume in the Naxos projected series of the complete sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. The recording was made in 1996 but not issued until 2002. It will do little to enhance the reputation of the pianist, the series, or Scarlatti himself. There is drama, magic, grandeur and ingenuity aplenty in these single movement works, but little of it is projected here. K 443, for example, so full of rhythmic energy and guitar figuration, comes across as four minutes of dullness. Duller even still is the piano tone throughout. Rarely have I heard such lack-lustre sound quality in a digital recording. Only in terms of duration is this CD good value, running for a second short of 80 minutes.

Unlike certain other Scarlatti sonatas recordings that strive to maintain the old-world style of restrain and tradition, which in some cases could lead to insipidity, this performer has chosen, my guess is quite consciously, to pursue a more personal, lyrical, and dynamic form of the same music. If you enjoy music where the performance is highly transparent and allows the listener to hear and feel the soul of the music and the performer, you'll like this recording. ...

Making a career and some recordings in the USA, pianist Beatrice Long features as the fourth pianist to contribute a volume in the Naxos projected series of the complete sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. The recording was made in 1996 but not issued until 2002. It will do little to enhance the reputation of the pianist, the series, or Scarlatti himself. There is drama, magic, grandeur and ingenuity aplenty in these single movement works, but little of it is projected here. K 433, for example, so full of rhythmic energy and guitar figuration, comes across as four minutes of dullness. Duller even still is the piano tone throughout. Rarely have I heard such lack-lustre sound quality in a digital recording. Only in terms of duration is this CD good value, running for a second short of 80 minutes.

Is it a Scarlatti recording, or just a faint approach of Chopin's music? Someone is using the wrong score? Maybe do some reading before recording and re-discover the facts about music periods and style?