Customer Reviews

Decca Beethoven Sonatas

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Were Wilhelm Backhaus (1884-1969) to come on the scene today, he would never be accepted seriously as a Beethoven player. His occasional added bass octaves, failure to play most repeats and idiosyncratic approach to the markings (he seemed to have little patience for the slow movements in Beethoven) would doom him with the critics and maybe the public too. But, thank God he came from another era, because there are some really marvelous things in this set.

Backhaus was seventy-four when he returned to the studio in 1958 to begin recording this cycle of Beethoven sonatas, a multi-year project in stereo sound which was nearly complete before his death in 1969 (only the Hammerklavier remained to be done - the mono recording included here comes from 1952). Despite the pianist's age, the playing is consistently vigorous and there's no sign of technical decline - in fact, it's hard to believe Backhaus was in his eighties when nearly half of these sonatas were recorded. His Beethoven was direct, masculine and extrovert almost to an extreme; if one phrase could describe his playing it would be unrelenting forward momentum.

It was his often unorthodox approach that didn't go over well with some critics even forty years ago, not to mention today. Harris Goldsmith, in his overview of the sonatas in the Beethoven bicentennial year for "High Fidelity" magazine wrote of Backhaus that "there is a burly weight and robust elementalism that infuses his playing, but it is the authoritative weight of German Romanticism rather than the more specific linearity of the true Beethoven style. There is something disappointingly cavalier about the late pianist's brisk treatment of slow movements and a failure to reach boiling emotional temperature in the more expressive moments. I also take exception to sundry anachronisms in Backhaus' pianism - his added bass octaves, for instance, and his old-fashioned left-hand anticipations. Another major Backhaus shortcoming...is his unwillingness to play really softly. The tone he produces is expansive and agreeable but there is little dynamic contrast (always an important ingredient in a Beethoven interpretation)."

Similarly, in 1970 the Gramophone reviewer wrote of the LP issue of this cycle that "almost every instrumental reviewer writing in these columns over the years...betray a remarkable unanimity of opinion that, too often, Backhaus himself is too loud. Also that on occasion he is magnificent. And that the contrast is dismaying: the following of a splendidly tempestuous allegro by an insensitively robust adagio has been a universal disappointment.... This is playing which can indeed vary from magnificent to wooden. A display of the highest technical control can be followed (especially, curiously, in the earlier sonatas) by muddles of fingering, of rhythm, of tempo, or of dynamics. The later sonatas are more reliable: but again there are strong contrasts between movements. The last sonata of all is very much a case in point: it is hardly possible to imagine a more overwhelming performance of the first movement, or a more disappointing one of the second."

Jed Distler, in a 2006 review of this Decca box set, echoes Goldsmith: "In general, the pianist's cavalier attitude toward Beethoven's dynamics, articulation, and phrasing obscures the composer's clearly specified linear trajectory and implicit drama. Slow movements tend to be perfunctorily brisk and overly loud (the pianist rarely achieves a true pianissimo), and many repeats are omitted. I also suspect that the stylistic anachronisms characterizing Backhaus' pianism (de-synchronized hands, added bass octaves, arpeggiated chords) arise more out of habit than intent.... However, despite my cavils, you cannot deny Backhaus' sincerity, his ripe, well-modulated sonority, and the communicative immediacy he often achieves."

Jeremy Siepmann, in his excellent liner notes accompanying this set, observes that "Time and again Backhaus neglects Beethoven's markings; sometimes, too, he can neglect the spirit - but there is no causative link between one and the other. Some of his sublimest (and most profoundly Beethovenian playing) coincides with his most licentious textual negligence, while some of his least persuasive is more scrupulously observant. To get the full measure of Backhaus's stature in Beethoven, one should lay aside the score, along with ones' preconceptions, and listen purely to the music." Which is exactly what I found myself doing.

Protracted listening accentuates some of the shortcomings of Backhaus's approach, but I found so much to appreciate and enjoy that I ended up not caring too much about the details. Certainly some of the early sonatas could have used a defter touch; for example, what was Backhaus thinking rushing through all of op. 14 no. 1? But he pulls a rabbit out of a hat with a perfectly proportioned op. 14 no. 2 and follows that with a marvelous op. 22. The big op. 10, no. 3, is flat-sounding compared to Arrau, but the Tempest and Waldstein sonatas really benefit from the pianist's full-blooded extroversion. And what a contrast there is between the opening measures of his Pathetique vs. Brendel's morbid pace. The Funeral March movement of op. 26 lacks sufficient gravitas, but what else could be expected given Backhaus's typical congeniality? The Moonlight gets a thumping good reading - what a great finale; and so on.

Overall then, this cycle is a fascinating journey, but not into the inner soul of Beethoven. Harris Goldsmith may have recommended that "one or two of the Backhaus discs ought to be acquired as treasurable mementos from a grand old man who loved to play the piano; as Beethoven interpretations of the highest order, though, they should be viewed a bit skeptically"; however, I think more than a few of the discs in this cycle are treasures. Four stars.

Backhaus can do anything technically, has a gorgeous tone and is steeped in this musical tradition. Whether the dark Opus 111 or the bouyant Op 31/1
Backahus can do it all.

If possible, supplement these stereo records with the earlier monoral ones.

I bought the mono set from professional and personable seller who can
get Japanese imports not available in the US.

Wouldn't it be nice if any reviewer of any product simply said, "I liked it!". Well, I liked it!

I enjoyed them so. Backhaus does his best to give us the unadorned Beethoven. And he succeeds so well that he has displaced Kempf as my "reference" set. I have and enjoy many of the complete and near complete sets and a good many of other Beethoven sonata recordindings. But I now go back to Backhaus to hear what Beethoven really wanted. And, in doing so , I continually rediscover the genius of the composer. I think it takes a pretty good artist to assist you in that.

Highly recommended. You will not be disappointed.

Although celebrated by some reviewers, I think Backhaus' box set doesn't excite the listener. Several movements are played too fast as if he had no patience or time to play (or record) them at the correct tempo marking.

As far as recording is concern, there are differences among the sessions like mics placement and reverb. On the majority of the tracks, unfortunately, the piano sounds like an old and harsh fifth rate instrument.

If you still doesn't know the Beethoven sonatas, I suggest starting from the Arrau's box set; if you're an expert and are looking for another version, check the amazing Anton Kuerti's recordings.

As a proud vinyl record collector, I find the Backhaus selection here on Amazon very lean indeed. I think it outrageous that his earlier UK Decca/London mono cycle is nowhere to be found. Some of the very first recording from 50-51 are a bit rough, but from 52 on the recordings are beautiful. PLEASE don't tell me that the mono/stereo debate is still going on in the 21st century! I, for one, have his complete stereo and mono cycles on vinyl and I think I'm the better for it. I've been hunting about for his LVB PCs with Krauss in glorious mono........I'm not going to kind it am I????? It's a pity.