BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto. BERG Violin Concerto • Antje Weithaas (vn); Steven Sloane, cond; Stavanger SO • AVI 8553305 (67:51)
Violinist Antje Weithaas’s pairing of Beethoven’s and Berg’s violin concertos isn’t the first, even in recent memory—Isabelle Faust did so, for example, with Claudio Abbado on Harmonia Mundi 902105 (Fanfare 35:6). Arabella Steinbacher also programmed the two works, with Andris Nelsons conducting the WDR SO (Orfeo, 778 091, Fanfare 33:4)—which, incidentally, at 75:22, lasted almost eight minutes longer than Weithaas’s performances—and Audite released a pair of older readings by Christian Ferras of the two works with different conductors. Weithaas asks in the booklet notes for the reason for yet another recording of Beethoven’s Concerto and gives a sort of answer—she believes that she’s found something personal to say in (through?) it. She plays a violin made by Peter Greiner in 2001; and, in doing so, joins a number of intrepid artists willing to espouse the productions of contemporary violin makers. That violin itself deserves attention, because of the bright, silvery sound she draws from it, one that’s generally more than captivating (the engineers have made a contribution to its effect, of course). And, with it, she does manage, as she seems to have hoped, to express a message that, while it may in itself not be so original, yet features many nuances that do from moment to moment in the first movement, in passagework and in cantabile, repeatedly bring something unexpected for the listener to ponder. Her tempos in the first movement remain on the quick side, but that’s no hindrance to the music’s profundity, as Jascha Heifetz and Aaron Rosand have shown. She sounds at times commanding and at times like pure quicksilver in the cadenza, which introduces timpani (as did Beethoven’s own for his piano transcription of the concerto), and the effect is electrifying. (Isabelle Faust, Ji?í B?lohlávek and the Prague Philharmonia, Harmonia Mundi 90194, Fanfare 32:4, also gave an electrifying account of the cadenza.) The purity of tone that graced Weithaas’s reading of the first movement plays an even more central role in the slow one. Anne-Sophie Mutter dug for more individuality and depth in the movement’s preternaturally still sections with what sounded like warped tools; Weithaas does so without a trace of eccentricity, either stylistic or timbral. While the soloist combines fluidity in statements of the finale’s main subject matter with confident declamation in the episodes (while interspersing a large number of striking cadenzas), Steven Sloane and the orchestra make the tuttis, as in the first movement, authoritatively explosive, but at the same time achieve admirable clarity of detail. Which would be the greater arrogance, to release yet another recording of Beethoven’s work or to believe yourself capable of doing so? Weithaas may be guilty on both counts, but she acquits herself of all charges with a convincing performance that combines light and dark in a delightfully individual way.
Weithaas and Sloane also adopt a quick tempo in the first half of Alban Berg’s Concerto’s first movement, a tempo that, perhaps surprisingly, does little to disperse its mists and brings passages together for listeners in a fresh way (recall the famous, perceptually ambiguous, duck-rabbit). As in one of the outstanding early recordings of the work, that by André Gertler (Angel 3509, released on CD as Hungaroton 31635), the engineers have placed the violin within the orchestral web, and make a strong case for it belonging there. Sloane and the orchestra revel in the shifting timbres of the first movement’s scherzo-like second half but build to an almost terrifying climax near the middle. Weithaas slashes more savagely than Gertler did in the opening of the second movement’s first half (and Sloane extracts more disturbing dissonances from the orchestra than did Paul Kletzki in that recording). And they create, in the tragedy at the end of that half, a terrifying sense of existential Angst. And in embellishing the chorale tune (Es ist genug) that Berg spun out of his tone row, Weithaas and Sloane evince an almost chamber-like intimacy.
Previous experience with Weithaas’s recordings made the arrival of this one for review particularly intriguing, raising the highest expectations. Each and every aspect of the release (including the prepossessing tone of Greiner’s violin) has met, and even exceeded, those expectations. A recording of special merit, it deserves a place on every record shelf. Urgently recommended.
Donka Angatschewa presents this album of Beethoven’s solo piano works. This recording features Beethoven’s Appassionata, Op. 57, 11 Bagatellen, Op. 119, Sonata, Op. 90, and Rondo a capriccio, Op. 129. Donka Angatcheva debuted with the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra when she was only ten years old. She has won numerous awards at international piano competitions, and frequently performs internationally.
Beethoven's five cello sonatas are the quintessence of his personality and work: they exemplify the creative development of this great composer who is perhaps even more relevant in our modern, ephemeral society in which little time is left for reflection. + Cellist Maja Weber and pianist Per Lundberg have been playing chamber music together for more than twenty years, mostly in piano quartets and quintets. + The idea of forming "Duo Leonore" was thus a natural consequence of their working together.
More than 200 years after its premiere at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Isabelle Faust, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Martin Helmchen have congenially mastered the artistic challenge of Beethoven’s gemstone. Under Herbert Blomstedt's sensitive direction, the soloists unite chamber musical intimacy together with virtuoso sophistication – and prove once again that the Triple Concerto is an unduly underestimated, much too rarely programmed masterpiece. With the composer's 5th Symphony, Blomstedt succeeds in achieving an entirely new perspective of this work. In the culmination of his three-year, intensive reenactment of Beethoven’s cosmos, the impressive sound that characterizes the Swedish grand seigneur's conducting is heralded by transparency rather than showmanship, relevance instead of pathos, and tenderness in place of sentimentality.
More than 200 years after its premiere at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Isabelle Faust, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Martin Helmchen have congenially mastered the artistic challenge of Beethoven’s gemstone. Under Herbert Blomstedt's sensitive direction, the soloists unite chamber musical intimacy together with virtuoso sophistication – and prove once again that the Triple Concerto is an unduly underestimated, much too rarely programmed masterpiece. With the composer's 5th Symphony, Blomstedt succeeds in achieving an entirely new perspective of this work. In the culmination of his three-year, intensive reenactment of Beethoven’s cosmos, the impressive sound that characterizes the Swedish grand seigneur's conducting is heralded by transparency rather than showmanship, relevance instead of pathos, and tenderness in place of sentimentality.
In a world sometimes tired of contemplating its own treasures, a plethora of discography with immediate and commonplace access can make the release of a new recording dedicated to some of Beethoven's 32 sonatas surprising. More particularly, the choice made by an artist such as Philippe Entremont, after 70 years of a phenomenal career, to focus on one of the Viennese Master's most recorded parts, reflects the complexity and intensity governing the relationship between the performer and the work, the relationship between his instrument and the orchestral aspects of the writing. This year, the exceptional artist celebrates two anniversaries. 70 years on the international stage and his 85th birthday. The few sonatas on this album, milestones in Beethoven's oeuvre, are just a short list for the audience. For the very choice of the works testifies to a passionate commitment, a gourmet and jubilant approach to do justice, with style and elegance, to a long journey initiated in 1957, during a recording made at Pathé.
Beethoven: The Early String Quartets, Op 18 / Arianna String Quartet
Centaur Records
CD
$18.99Apr 14, 2015
Hailed for Their Outstanding Musicianship, the Arianna String Quartet - Violinists John McGrosso and Julia Sakharova, Violist Joanna Mendoza and Cellist Kurt Baldwin - Has Firmly Established Itself As One of America's Finest Chamber Ensembles. Their Performances Have Been Praised for Tonal Warmth, Fastidious Balance... Expressive Vitality (Chicago Tribune) and Emotional Commitment and Fluent Virtuosity, (Pretoria News, South Africa). This Double-Disc Set Finds the Group Initiating a Complete Beethoven String Quartet Cycle with the Earliest of the Quartet Opuses, Op. 18/1-6.
This is an extraordinary journey through the most preeminent of classical symphonies. With an ensemble of only 12-16 top-quality musicians, the Pocket Philharmonic Orchestra explores Beethoven's musical origins. All the great conductors and orchestras have shown where Beethoven led: how his ideas paved the way for later masters like Schumann, Bruckner and Mahler. What hasn't been shown yet is where Beethoven was: where his musical language came from, how he shifted standards and developed techniques in a completely new and revolutionary way. The Pocket Philharmonic has a new approach to this idea: instead of a full chamber or symphony orchestra, the ensemble performs as a chamber ensemble in a symphonic manner – symphonic chamber music, or chamber music symphonies, so to speak. "This is the most vivid performance of the Eroica you have ever heard" said the critics. “It makes the revolution in his music audible. "An outstanding listening experience."
Pianist Richard Cionco – praised by Donal Henahan of the New York Times for his “sensitive pianism” – made his orchestral debut at the age of nine, and has since performed with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra and the Seijo Symphony of Tokyo. He is currently a faculty member at California State University at Sacramento and is a Steinway artist.
Beethoven: Piano Concertos 2 & 5 for Sextet / Shybayeva, Animato Quartet
Naxos
CD
$9.99$19.99Save 50%Dec 03, 2021
During the Biedermeier period, the piano gained huge popularity as a domestic instrument, and piano concertos were increasingly arranged for chamber music ensembles. Ignaz Lachner’s superb arrangements of Mozart’s piano concertos are well known, but his brother Vinzenz Lachner’s arrangements of Beethoven’s concertos are a rarity, though equally as valuable. This volume completes the cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos in Vinzenz Lachner’s transcriptions for piano and string quintet.
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 4. 8, 30-32 / Jumppanen
Ondine
CD
$8.99$17.99Save 50%Nov 11, 2016
This release is the final volume of pianist Paavali Jumppanen’s acclaimed cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas. This volume combines the early Op. 7 and the famous Pathétique sonata together with the Last Sonatas Opp. 109-111 written by Beethoven in the 1820s. Jumppanen has collaborated with numerous contemporary composers and has premiered many solo and chamber works for the piano. He has worked personally with esteemed composers including Pierre Boulez, William Duckworth, Henri Dutilleux, as well as composers of his native Finland. In fact, on the DG recording project of the complete works by Pierre Boulez, Jumppanen recorded the piano sonatas upon the composer’s request. Paavali Jumppanen is an internationally esteemed pianist, a versatile performer equally at home as a concerto soloist, chamber musician, and a recitalist. His vast repertoire spans piano literature from Bach to the Avant-garde. Jumppanen has spent several years performing the works of Viennese Classics, in particular Beethoven. His performances of the complete cycles of Beethoven's and Mozart's Piano Sonatas as well as Beethoven's concertos and chamber music have won critical acclaim. Jumppanen’s installments in the Beethoven cycle have received thrilling reviews and, among others, the ‘Choc’ Award from the French music magazine Classica.
REVIEW:
He brings a supple, pliable touch to the Op. 7's first movement, and his attention to left-hand lines in the finale imbues it with a sharper than usual edge. The rhapsodic Vivace man non troppo of Op. 109 is a model of sensitive phrasing and timing. A superbly engineered and annotated conclusion to his Beethoven cycle.
Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 5 "Emperor" & 0 / Giltburg, V. Petrenko, RLPO
Naxos
CD
$9.99$19.99Save 50%Mar 11, 2022
These works share the common key of E flat major but represent two very different stages in the composer’s life. The Piano Concerto "No. 0," WoO 4, was written when Beethoven was 13 years old and is one of his earliest works. With the orchestral score lost, this extant version for piano solo written in Beethoven’s hand includes the tutti sections reduced for piano. The radiant ‘Emperor’ Concerto shows the 38-year-old Beethoven at the peak of his creative powers, and remains a glorious example of his spirit triumphing over life’s adversities.
REVIEW:
Boris Giltburg’s recording of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto is offered with a scintillating twist, the ‘other’ E-flat concerto composed when the composer was 13. This brings Giltburg’s Beethoven concerto cycle to a close, his ebullience and physicality the reverse of plain-speaking, brilliantly partnered by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko.
Given such forces this is never simply ‘another’ Emperor, but one boldly and exuberantly conceived. Giltburg makes you listen with new ears to one of the most familiar and greatly loved works in the repertoire. The Piano Concerto No 0 (played in Beethoven’s original piano reduction) may be a protracted jeu d’esprit, but Giltburg’s relish of its tonic, virtuoso aplomb sets the pulse racing. Naxos soundworld is of an exceptional clarity and focus.
-- International Piano
Excellent performances of the Emperor and the rarely heard Concerto No. 0. The sound reproduction on this Naxos CD is vivid and well balanced. Those looking for an excellent performance of the Emperor and who are attracted to its lesser coupling, will certainly find this a most rewarding disc.
When we think of Ludwig van Beethoven images of a stormy and passionate but tortured genius are brought to mind, alongside the transformative effect of his work on musical history. All of these things are true, but no artist lives in a vacuum, and even music that opens a portal onto ‘the infinite realm of the spirit’ has its wider context. Illustrated with music from each period, this enlightening life history by esteemed musicologist Davinia Caddy tells us about Beethoven’s place in society from his earlier career as a fine pianist, his life on the edge of the Napoleonic war, his professional triumphs and many romantic misfortunes, and that famous defiance of deafness and declaration that he would ‘seize Fate by the throat’. The musical excerpts include the ‘Pathétique’ and ‘Moonlight’ Sonatas, ‘Diabelli’ Variations, Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, 6 and 9, ‘Emperor’ Concerto, Missa solemnis and Fidelio, among many others.
Featuring performances by...
City of London Choir | Béla Drahos | Kenneth Schermerhorn | Kodály Quartet | Jay Baylon | Inga Nielsen | Kölner Kammerorchester | Nina Tichman | Capella Istropolitana | Maria Kliegel | Michael Halász | Sergio Gallo | Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra | Westminster Boys' Choir | Helmut Müller-Brühl | Hilary Davan Wetton | James Taylor | Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia | Nashville Symphony Orchestra | Stefan Vladar | Edmund Battersby | Lori Phillips | Stuttgart Piano Trio | Jeno Jandó | Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Beethoven: The Late String Quartets Arranged For String Orchestra / Tonnensen, Camerata Nordica
BIS
CD
$39.99Feb 25, 2014
Like few other works, Beethoven's late string quartets have gained an almost undisputed standing as the very apex of their genre. Not many of Beethoven's contemporaries would have accorded them this: the composer Louis Spohr called them 'indecipherable, uncorrected horrors' and the quartets were widely regarded as the monstrous products of a madness which at best could be excused by the composer's deafness. One of the first to recognize them for the masterpieces that they are was Franz Schubert, who after having heard a performance of Quartet No.14 in C sharp minor is reported to have said 'After this, what is left for us to write?' Composers after Schubert have been as awestruck by this music, with Stravinsky famously describing the Große Fuge as 'an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever.' The feeling that Beethoven in these works was giving form to a universal music which transcends genre conventions have also inspired many to adapt various of the quartets for larger forces, including the conductors Dmitri Mitropoulos and Arturo Toscanini. On the present recordings, originally released by the Altara label in 2006, it is the Norwegian violinist Terje Tønnesen's adaptations we hear, performed by himself and his Swedish string ensemble Camerata Nordica. Besides providing the greater dynamic spectrum that a larger ensemble can bring to the music, Tønnesen's main aim has been to strengthen the contrasts between intimate passages and fuller textures by employing solo players in certain passages, as in a concerto grosso. He and Camerata Nordica has also reinstated the Große Fuge in its proper context: that amazing 15 minute monolith was originally intended as the finale of Op.130, but proved indigestible to contemporary audiences and critics - one of whom described it as 'as incomprehensible as Chinese' - and was replaced by an easy-going rondo following a request from Beethoven's publisher.
![Beethoven: Triple Concerto & Symphony No. 5 / Blomstedt, Gewandhausorchester [Blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3660386.jpg?v=1786833732&width=800)
![Beethoven: Triple Concerto & Symphony No. 5 / Blomstedt, Gewandhausorchester [Blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/516fAyRyKbL.jpg?v=1786833733&width=800)
![Beethoven: Triple Concerto & Symphony No. 5 / Blomstedt, Gewandhausorchester [Blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3660386.jpg?v=1786833732&width=400)
