Customer Reviews

Ludwig van Beethoven: The Sonatas for Piano and Violin - Wilhelm Kempff / Wolfgang Schneiderhan

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Words really can't describe how I feel regarding these performances. They're in mono from the mid 50's, but sound excellent and the rapt playing is astonishing! They sound totally like live performances and those guys match each other beautifully and perfectly!

Of course, these are historical recordings and I personally like them because they have bite and verve, as well as a sense of intimacy. You really couldn't ask for a better set of these sonatas!

My favorite recordings of these I've heard so far.

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Schneiderhan has a very sweet, singing timbre, with great control and very finely mannered. His technique is superb. We have sweetness and strength here.

Kempff, of course, had about the best sense of Beethoven's architechtonics around.

Here he purposefully reins himself in a little to subtly correspond with Schneiderhan.

Really, the two swing like a jazz duo, each conscious of the other's playing.

This was a remarkable collaboration.

Kempff's strength is subtly apparent beneath Schneiderhan's sweetness.

Their timing is superb.

This is an almost Modernistic reading of these classically Romantic works.

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Teaming up two of the world's greatest players doesn't always work out well, but in this case, Schneiderhan and Kempff give us the best performance of Beethoven's great violin sonatas (the only violin sonatas worth listening to?) in recording. Not only do they play superbly, but they aptly capture the differences between the early sonatas and the late, mature ones. They do not rush through the sonatas in a speed race like many other performers, but instead offer the right pace and dynamics. I've listened to the Kreutzer and Spring many, many times, and each time I come back to this pair, I simply shake my head and say, man, nothing gets better than this.