Piano Concerti 3 & 4

Beethoven (Artist), Schnabel (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 16, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Testament UK
• ASIN: B000003XI4
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #307,067 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good historical recording, May 29, 2010

By 

Jerry Seattle - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Piano Concerti 3 & 4 (Audio CD)

This recording of the 4th piano concerto is an old favorite of mine, and strikes me as the best of Schnabel's Beethoven concerto recordings. It is better recorded than the one with Sargent, and captures his piano tone in a very attractive way--a very warm-hearted performance. The 3rd concerto performance is worth hearing, but not better than the Sargent. The sound is 1940s mono, perfectly listenable but not comparable to modern recordings.

4.0 out of 5 stars Schnabel's last studio recording of these concertos: good, but not as outstanding as his first with Sargent, January 21, 2011

By 

Discophage (France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Piano Concerti 3 & 4 (Audio CD)

Artur Schnabel recorded a truly historical complete cycle of Beethoven's concertos, between 1932 and 1935 (concurrently with his complete set of Piano Sonatas, the first ever on disc), with the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Malcolm Sargent. Not that they were premiere recordings (only the First was), although as a complete cycle, they were. But more important still, they immediately became the reference, the yardstick against which all others were gauged (and many given short shrift), until World War II and even after. They were immensely influential - a major influence on the young Glenn Gould, for instance. I have them in an invaluable Dante 14-CD box, with Schnabel's complete Sonatas, bagatelles (op 33 and 126) and variations (op. 34, Eroica and Diabelli), plus the 1947 remake of the Emperor with Galliera as a bonus, all in good transfers (Sonatas & Concertos; Dante credits all the early cycle to the London Symphony Orchestra. In fact only 1 & 5 were with the LSO, the rest with the London Philharmonic). I was fortunate to find it recently at the "real" store for a two-digit figure, but the box sells at astronomical sums on the present website. But fortunately Naxos Historical has also reissued them, in transfers by the sound wizard Marc Obert-Thorn, and those are widely available, and cheap - at least on the European sister companies (Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, Op. 15; Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat, Op. 19; Bagatelle in A Minor (Fur Elise), Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3, Piano Concerto No. 4 and Schnabel - Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5/Cello Sonata No. 2 (rec. 1932 & 1934)).

Schnabel re-recorded 4 and 5 in 1942 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Frederick Stock, Piano Concerti 4 & 5 (a Jew and far-seeing, Schnabel left Germany in 1933, first to settle in England, then, in 1939, in the US, obtaining citizenship in 1944), and again 2 to 5 (why not 1 I don't know) with the Philharmonia under Issay Dobrowen and Alceo Galliera (in the Emperor), in 1946 and 1947. It is these later remakes that Testament offers here and on the companion disc, Piano Concerti 2 & 5. An an anecdote: Concerto piano n°3 wasn't published at the time, but only on the occasion of the reissue, in an LP box, in 1957. The CD liner notes don't even mention that, and the Gramphone review of the LP reissue (October 1957, available on the online archive) didn't provide an explanation for the late publication. I've found it in No. 87 of the French Revue Disque, March 1957 (containing a long presentation of Schnabel and a comparative discography of the Beethoven Piano Concertos). In the first movement re-exposition, at 10:48 (measure 370), Schnabel continues for the full length of the bar the trill that opens it, instead of playing the flourish leading to the next bar in the last two beats. He is here confusing with the first statement of that same figure earlier on, measure 193. He realized his mistake after the recording session, and asked for the publication to be withheld until he could correct it. He never found the time, and then died. His wife and son authorized publication in 1957. So here you go: an almost undetectable memory slip for two beats, 10 years in the can. Imagine he had made a two-bar long mistake.

Interpretively Schnabel's views haven't changed radically over the years, although he is now slightly mellower and less biting, especially in the 3rd Piano Concerto (from 30-31 May 1947) and, almost imperceptibly so, in the finale of the 4th (5-7 June 1946). Nonethless the approach may come as a shock to those who associate him with a "classical" approach of Beethoven (although being a "classic" Beethoven interpretor doesn't necessarily make him a "classicist") or who were grown on the more gentle approaches of Kempff or Arrau (to say nothing of Barenboim-Klemperer). The outer movements of the 3rd remain in 1947 among the swiftest I've encountered, and the finales of both concertos have great drive and punch, exuding an irresistible, Mozartean "joie-de-vivre": not many since have captured this ebullience, this sheer joy of making music. Schabel had the reputation of hating the recording studio, and always prefering music to digitial perfection. Yet I hear no digital weaknesses here, and Schnabel's precision and digital fleetness have not lessened over the years - an especially impressive feat in view of the brisk tempos. Now as before they are put at the service of an admirable equality and delicacy of touch, never percussive as it could be with Casadesus or Serkin (to say nothing of Gould!). Dobrowen offers strong and muscular support, as did Sargent more than a decade earlier. The slow movements are also remarkable, because here, in the remakes as in the earlier versions, Schnabel does NOT adopt the fast approach of Rubinstein-Toscanini (in the 3rd in 1944, Violin & Piano Concertos) or, in the 4th, of Gieseking-Böhm (1939, Gieseking Plays Beethoven: Piano Concerto Nos. 4 & 5) or Casadesus-Ormandy (1947, Eugene Ormandy). If anything, in 1946-47 he is even more expansive than in 1933, and equally dreamy. A remarkable feature remains, in the Largo of the 3rd PC, that Schnabel keeps the sustaining pedal depressed in the opening statement of the theme (and on its return later), thus blurring the harmonies and making it sound almost like Debussy.. Another one in the same movement is how Schnabel plays the arpeggios at 4:42 as a mere "halo" of sound, letting bassoon and flute assume the main role here.

Yet I can't say that I find the 1946 and 1947 remakes, in Testament's transfers, much preferable to the 1932-35 recordings (in Dante's transfers, but presumably those of Naxos are even better). The orchestral sound has a harshness that is not present on Dante, and conversely the sound on Dante is rather clearer and less congested. Also, while there is a strong background swish on Dante, there is a also background of sizzling surfaces on Testament (especialy perceptible in the first movement of the 3rd), and congestion in the climaxes. In the 3rd it also runs at a marginally lower pitch than Dante, although here I don't know which one is pitch-faithful - and nobody ever will, since orchestral pitch wasn't necessarily a precise A = 440hz. But it does give Dante an additional bite, and, more important, a greater clarity to Schnabel's piano; in Testament, it is more recessed and somber. It is in the slow movements that Testament's less noisy surface noise makes their transfer preferable. Still, the Testament sonics are not good enough to make them a decisive factor, that would make up for the added bite and exultant exuberance of the earlier versions (to say nothing of their historical significance). In fact the 1947 recordings of the two concertos, by Arrau and Casadesus under Ormandy, originally transfered, I believe, by Dante, but pirated and now more conveniently available on an Ormany History set, Ormandy: Maestro Brillante (Box Set), sound considerably better than these contemporary Schnabels on Testament. Add to that an obtrusively piercing Philharmonia oboe in the 4th Piano Concerto. They must have replaced him (or he must of changed instruments) by 1947. So I'd recommend the Naxos versions over these. They remain, today more than ever, an object-lesson in how to interpret Beethoven, one that has sadly been neglected by generations of musicians.