Decca Beethoven Sonatas [Box set, Import]

Beethoven (Composer), Wilhelm Backhaus (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Wilhelm Backhaus
• Composer: Beethoven
• Audio CD (January 9, 2006)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 8
• Format: Box set, Import
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Decca Import
• ASIN: B000E0LB7C
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,259 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Backhaus was one of the great exponents of the Classical and Romantic repertory and his performances had an integrity that eschewed any unnecessary display and flamboyance; his concern was to give the most direct interpretation of what the composer wishes and the structure and architecture of his chosen repertory was paramount. Backhaus recorded extensively for Decca throughout the 1950s and 1960s and recorded works by Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Schumann. His complete cycle of Beethoven Sonatas occupied him throughout the 1950s and 1960s and is regarded by many as his greatest achievement, and the cycle is justly recognised as one of the great recorded cycles. It has not been available on CD for some years now and is reissued in response to repeated requests to make it available again.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mature, Rock-Solid Beethoven, June 28, 2006

By 

George Perkins - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Decca Beethoven Sonatas (Audio CD)

From the first sonata to the last, Backhaus plays these works with all the seriousness and intensity they demand. His tone, not usually mentioned, is incredible. His playing may lack charm and lightheartedness, but after all, this is Beethoven, not Mozart. He has a nice classical approach to the early works, though it should be mentioned that he observes very few of the repeats. The middle works are even better, he presents such favorites as the Pathetique and Waldstein works in such a compelling way that its like hearing them for the first time. In the late works he is a bit less at home, but in my opinion much can still be enjoyed in his performances of them. Backhaus recorded this cycle twice and played them throughout his life. In fact, some of the performances were recorded just a few months before he died, though you would never know it. Another interseting fact is that he was actually EMI's second pick to be the first pianist to record the 32 sonatas, Schnabel of course was the first. This shows that thirty years before he recorded this cycle, EMI recognized his greatness. Imagine then, what 30 years of performing and recording these works did for him. They are incredible recordings that show a master who understands these works like so very few do.

This is a reissue of his stereo set, which has far better sound than his very similar mono cycle, currently unavailable in the U.S.. The liner notes are illuminating as well. This set is worth twice the asking price and will surely not be around forever, so do yourself a favor and get this cycle. You won't be disappointed.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unmissable Beethoven Cycle, September 27, 2007

By 

Johannes Climacus "Listening for Enjoyment" (Beverly, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Decca Beethoven Sonatas (Audio CD)

If you are reading this review, chances are you are a classical record collector who owns multiple versions of all the Beethoven sonatas, perhaps multiple complete cycles by the likes of Schnabel, Kempff, Ashkenazy, et. al. You are also probably wondering whether you should invest in another Beethoven cycle by a pianist whose name and legacy may be less familiar to you. The answer is: absolutely! Not even Schnabel probed more deeply behind the notes than Wilhelm Backhaus, and few have possessed the technical endurance at an advanced age to conquer the rugged peaks of the late sonatas (all but the *Hammerklavier* were taken down when Backhaus was in his seventies). Backhaus may be gruff sometimes; the earlier sonatas could do with more refinement, elegance and humor. He also has a tendency to urge the music along at relatively swift tempos, which will not please those who prefer a leisurely ramble through Beethoven. But whatever one's misgivings about a particular point of interpretation, the integrity, inwardness, and ruggedness of Backhaus's approach will win you over time and again. Here is a pianist whose absolute mastery of technique and idiom affords him the space to follow his inner promptings without the slightest playing to the gallery. The listener is invited to follow him along his way--or not; he aims mostly to challenge, and never merely to entertain. The recordings sound newly minted in this affordable "bargain box." If you do not know Backhaus's interpretations, you are strongly encouraged to purchase this set.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A musical investment for life, February 5, 2011

By 

Jurgen Lawrenz (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Decca Beethoven Sonatas (Audio CD)

The hype around Beethoven didn't start yesterday. It is a product of the middle to late 19th century, when musician began to have an inkling of just how revolutionary (artistically speaking) Beethoven had been: how he changed the whole conception entertained by western civilisation of the nature of music. Remember that Hegel, an exact contemporary, still doubted that music was an autonomous art form!
The consequence was, that his Protean power. so persuasive and yet so uncomfortable for bourgeoise sensibilities, was subdivided. We know all about his three periods, and so on. Interpreters more or less followed suit: after all, they made a living out of him. When Schnabel, in Harold Schoenberg's headline, "invented" Beethoven, he created a caricature. He did not invent Beethoven, he drove the craze for originality to a quite unwholesome peak. I wonder how people could take this seriously, but they still do. The point I'm making here is that you are listening to Schnabel the pianist using Beethoven's music a a tightrope for his own dancing. No-one followed in him in this attitude; and just as well!
But he succeeded in obscuring the fact that Beethoven's true style was rather better represented, in his own era, by Wilhelm Backhaus. Many people always knew this; certainly the Decca people did. In consequence we have, in these recordings, a cycle of performances that are sane, stylistically secure, eschewing any exaggeration for mere effect and remaining unruffled by the cries of those who can't do without varnish and/or pretence. Stephen Kovacevich once said, "Wilhelm Backhaus was the only pianist who really understood Beethoven." I can go along with that.
It is true that Backhaus is inclined to relatively fast tempi. Hi approach to the early sonatas will not suit every taste. But strangely, they reflect the "classical" nature of these works much better than, e.g. Kempff, who is often represented as playing them to perfection. I doubt it. There is an almost hectic nervousness to his playing that make you realise that he (Kempff) is doing the exact opposite: dressing the composer up as a barn-storming young eagle with neither the wit of Haydn nor the melancholy elegance of Mozart, but somewhere in between, between two stools. Of these "heart on the sleeve" moments of rhetoric, Backhaus once said, "well, it can't have been all that much in deadly earnest!" Of course not: it was all play with forms that Beethoven would eventually break up, when he became Beethoven. So Backhaus is true to the metier, whereas others err in believing that they have to play as if Beethoven had foresight that he would one day compose a Waldstein Sonata (e.g. Arrau).
Backhaus is at his best in the mature sonatas. Let me make just one point, which is so important that we nearly always forget it. Any performer who plays just the notes, properly and with full attention on the markings and a genuine knowledge of how the composer's style fits into his own environment, can't go wrong. But I have just announced the hardest interpretive task of all. When you hear Backhaus play the Waldstein or Appassionata, you become aware that he adds nothing of his own to the notes: and now the miracle is, that the works are all the more eloquent for it. For once you actually hear the voice of the creator, not that of his interpreter! - I have always felt that the late sonatas, so tempting to pianists to overplay them, are majestic in Backhaus' rendering, especially opp. 106 and 111.
The recording quality varies a lot, from somewhat poor and dull to clear and translucent. Recording techniques changed over the more than 10 years of the making. The Hammerklavier was evidently recorded first; it is still in mono. Nonetheless, in terms of Beethoven playing, Backhaus has few rivals on his own level of greatness. Among younger players, only Gilels and Pollini reach a similar kind of consistency. Both those cycles are incomplete, and much as this must irk admirers of Pollini, he was better at it in his younger years. I for one am not keen to hear any more of his Beethoven after auditioning his two latest albums. Gilels is on the whole the best modern version, although he has a few quite eccentric moments (No. 13, No. 31). In short: as far as complete cycles are concerned, and assuming you are serious about Beethoven and not just sold on comparing the gimmicks of Mr X and Y, the Backhaus set is an investment for life.