This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

A generation of strict musicologists, literalist critics, and unimaginative performers will be offended by Freddy Kempf’s traversal of Beethoven’s three most approachable “name” sonatas, because the young Englishman is by no means strict, literal, or unimaginative. He seems to be goading us with the very first chord of the “Pathétique,” sustaining only the left-hand notes, creating an unexpectedly blunt strike against the keyboard (an effect he reproduces every time that passage repeats). The introductory material is full of hesitations and rubato that call to mind C. P. E. Bach, and the main theme takes off like the proverbial bat out of hell. Never does Kempf’s handling of the music seem arbitrary, but it is surprising enough to keep jaded listeners alert.

There’s tenderness and repose here, too, notably in the second movement of the “Pathétique,” although this movement also has its odd dull moments. The over-famous first movement of the “Moonlight” sonata is full of unexpected detail, although it is neither sentimentalized nor excessively dramatized. The final movement is fleet and assertive, with immaculate passagework, all the while Kempf proving that it’s not necessary to hammer the klavier. The “Appassionata” has fewer surprises, yet it’s keenly organized (listen to his absolutely right transition into the final presto pages), and fiery in the outer movements. In DSD surround mode, the recorded sound is close in a reverberant space, perhaps a bit harder in forte passages than is ideal; it’s more generalized and quite solid in two-channel CD playback.

Kempf’s Beethoven, while by no means outlandish (certainly not by the standards of a century ago), will not please listeners who frown on any little departure from the printed score. But it’s full of panache that never misrepresents Beethoven, and it’s that rarest of things, a new standard-rep recording individual enough to justify being released into a crowded market.

James Reel, FANFARE

For more than 50 years, the international Beethoven Competition held by piano manufacturer Bösendorfer and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna has been taking place every 4 years; in 2017 for the 15th rendition, the Italian Rodolfo Leone was crowned as 1st prize winner by the highly regarded international jury from far more than 250 competing young talents. His play induces critics to utterances like “... he seemed to be communicating with distant worlds, as a true sound philosopher” (Oberösterreichische Nachrichten), which Rodolfo Leone documents with this Beethoven album. Besides the Sonata Op. 106, the famous Hammerklavier-Sonata, by extent and musical content the most complex, outshining all the others of Beethoven’s sonatas, an interlude, the Andante favori is given, which Beethoven originally composed as slow movement of the Waldstein sonata, Op. 53, which follows afterwards. This album is a debut with great interpretive maturity and indescribable power.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.


BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas: Nos. 30–32 • Mari Kodama (pn) • PENTATONE 5186389 (63:21)


I haven’t been following Mari Kodama’s Beethoven piano sonata cycle—in fact, this is the first disc in the series I’ve heard—but for those who have, this is her seventh installment; all previous ones have been peer reviewed in past issues. I note that colleague Lynn René Bayley’s review of this latest addition to Kodama’s now over two-thirds completed cycle is scheduled to appear in Fanfare 35:6, but since that issue hasn’t been published yet as I write this, I can’t know what Bayley had to say. Not that it matters, of course, since we contributors work independently of each other and often reach quite different conclusions.


For those who have taken note of Kodama’s Beethoven sonata survey, FYI, all but nine of the sonatas have been released. Still to appear are Nos. 11–13, 15, 20, 22, and 27–29. Having never heard Kodama in anything before, I approached her Beethoven as a tabula rasa and I must admit to being very favorably impressed. There’s clarity to her voicing and a lyrical spontaneity to her readings, especially in the opening movements of the E-Major and A?-Major sonatas (Nos. 30 and 31) that catch just the right tone of Beethoven’s poeticized utopian vision.


As regular readers will know, the concluding “Gesangvoll” movement of the E-Major Sonata holds special resonance for me, and it’s usually the touchstone by which I embrace or reject a performance. Kodama does not disappoint. Her broad, stately, quiet, and deeply contemplative statement of the opening theme communicates, as it should, a sense of reverential mystery. Some listeners may perceive Kodama’s tempo as being a bit slow, but it’s more of a perception than reality. She takes 13:12 for the movement compared to Craig Sheppard’s 12:50 and Maurizio Pollini’s 12:37, not that big a difference in a movement of this length. If you want to know what slow really is, try Andrew Rangell at 15:22. I think the perception of Kodama’s capaciousness is more the result of her approach to phrasing than it is to underlying tempo. She has a way of ever-so-slightly hesitating on the brink of cadential resolutions that, for me, gives the music its special otherworldly quality.


When it comes to the Sturm und Drang of the C-Minor Sonata’s first movement, Kodama’s fingers prove to be as nimble as anyone else’s, but I’m not sure she invests the music with the same degree of vehemence and venomous bite as do some others, for example Freddy Kempf, who attacks the Allegro at a faster tempo and with tremendous ferocity in his BIS recording. What worked superbly well for Kodama in the “Gesangvoll” movement of the Sonata No. 30 doesn’t necessarily work to her advantage in the Sonata No. 32. Some of her phrasing choices strike me as slightly distorting of Beethoven’s rhythmic patterns and disrupting to the headlong rush. It’s an interpretive issue, not a technical one.


Overall, I’d rate Kodama’s Beethoven very highly, at least as much as I’ve heard of it, which, so far, is just this one disc. As for the recording, PentaTone’s team of Dutch engineers has done a bang-up job of capturing Kodama’s Steinway D-274 in ringing tone and solid sound. All modern piano recordings should sound this good. If you’ve been collecting Kodama’s Beethoven cycle, there’s no reason to stop now. If you haven’t been collecting it, the only reason I can think of to not start with this latest release is that if you’re like me you prefer to begin at the beginning. But then that could be your cue to go out and acquire all seven discs released so far.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

This 2-disc set is Paavali Jumppanen’s fourth volume in his cycle of Beethoven piano cycles. This album includes works from the composer’s middle period: Sonatas Nos. 16-18 & 24-27. The first installment in Jumppanen’s Beethoven cycle won the “Choc” Award from French music magazine Classica.

Beethoven Sviatoslav Richter Piano Sonatas, Op.10 no 3; Op.26; Op.57

Nicknamed ‘the poet of the piano,’ Nelson Goerner has an impressive discography, including his recent multi-award-winning Chopin and Debussy CDs. For this disc, Goerner tackles Beethoven’s Sonata No. 29 ‘Hammerklavier’, and his Bagatelles Op. 126. Of his Hammerklavier, the great composer said, “Here is a sonata that will make pianists work hard.” Goerner rises to this challenge beautifully, playing the forty-five minute work with passion and emotion.

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REVIEWS:

Goerner’s Hammerklavier is about flight, variety of shapes, sounds, ideas and precision of communication. Phrases are imbued with life and meaning but, equally importantly, they are separated by breath, lending them intelligibility. If ever there were an effortless Hammerklavier finale, this is it.

– Gramophone

The Hammerklavier has received several amazing recordings in recent years, and Nelson Goerner’s is one of them. It is also a highly individual though never quirky account.

– BBC Music Magazine

From the pen of the fifteen-year-old Beethoven, these three piano quartets are among the earliest examples of a chamber music genre that would not reach full maturity until the time of Brahms.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Though pianist Artur Pizarro's performances of the solo parts in Beethoven's Third, Fourth, and Fifth piano concertos are consistently superlative, it's not too much to say that the real draw here is not the soloist but the accompanists. Because as fine as Pizarro's virtuoso playing is, Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra turn in performances of such force, sensitivity, and balance that they may well be the finest accompaniments for these concertos ever recorded. Pizarro is a strong and supple soloist whose dramatic account on the Third Concerto, lyrical reading of the Fourth Concerto, and imperious elucidation of the Fifth Concerto show his firm grasp of the music's escalating rhetoric. But Mackerras, a seasoned and canny conductor, not only supports Pizarro unstintingly, but finds the orchestral accompaniments' depths and beauties by highlighting a solo cello in the Fourth's Finale, weaving wind lines in the Third's Largo and blending string sonorities in the Fifth's Adagio, thereby creating interpretations of ineffable rightness and profundity. Captured in amazingly life-like sound by Linn, these performances will be compulsory listening for anyone who appreciates the fine art of accompaniment.

-- All Music Guide

Classical Music

This recording is the final volume in Lars Vogt’s new cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos on Ondine. It includes Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 4, two outstanding examples of Beethoven's writing. Conducting Royal Northern Sinfonia from the keyboard, Vogt’s fresh interpretations of Beethoven concertos have been widely welcomed, and recently he was nominated for Artist of the Year 2017 by the Gramophone magazine.

Beethoven’s 2nd Piano Concerto was largely written before 1789. The work was premiered in 1795 with Beethoven debuting as piano soloist. This early work shows the influence of Mozart but at the same time it is a powerful evidence of Beethoven’s development as a composer towards maturity. Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto is considered by many as his best achievement in the field of piano concerto. Beethoven opens this work in a revolutionary way by means of a calm dialogue between the piano and the orchestra. The second movement includes some of the most dramatic music that Beethoven ever wrote – only to be contrasted by the boundless joy and freedom of the final movement. Lars Vogt was appointed the first ever “Pianist in Residence” by the Berlin Philharmonic in 2003/04 and enjoys a high profile as a soloist and chamber musician. His debut solo recording on Ondine with Bach’s Goldberg Variations was released in August 2015 and has been a major critical success. Lars Vogt started his tenure as Music Director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia in September 2015.

REVIEW:

It’s perhaps no coincidence, given that Vogt is currently Music Director the Royal Northern Sinfonia, that the rapport between the soloist and this highly accomplished band of musicians is everything it should be, and more. These are marvelous performances, and the recordings, derived from live performances at Sage Gateshead, serve them well.

– Gramophone

Lars Vogt continues his Ondine recordings with a new cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos. Conducting the Royal Nothern Sinfonia from the keyboard Lars Vogt shows the brilliance and the beauty of these two majestic works of the classic piano concerto literature.

Beethoven made an early reputation for himself as a keyboard player. Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 5 feature two opposite sides in Beethoven’s career: the 1st concerto is a masterpiece by a young composer in his 20s who is already looking into new dimensions of musical expression. Although it was his first published piano concerto Beethoven had already made serious attemps in the genre – large part of the material to his 2nd concerto also predate the 1st concerto.

The 5th concerto, commonly known as the Emperor concerto, was written between his 6th and 7th Symphonies when Vienna was under Napoleon’s occupation. During bombardment Beethoven, now 39 and increasingly deaf, had sheltered in the cellar of his brother, covering his head with a pillow against the noise of the cannons. Beethoven dedicated the work to Archduke Rudolph who had fled the city. Despite of its joyful, optimistic and hopeful character, occasionally echoes of war disrupt the work creating a strong impact. The work was premiered two years later in November 1811.

Lars Vogt was appointed the first ever “Pianist in Residence” by the Berlin Philharmonic in 2003/04 and enjoys a high profile as a soloist and chamber musician. His debut solo recording on Ondine with Bach’s Goldberg Variations (ODE 1273-2) was released in August 2015 and has been a major critical success. The album’s tracks have also been streamed online over 6 million times. Lars Vogt started his tenure as Music Director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia in September 2015.

With five discs released so far in the cycle, Ronald Brautigam now takes on Beethoven's complete works for piano and orchestra, choosing to do so on a modern piano and with a modern instrument orchestra: the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, internationally acclaimed for its many fine recordings on BIS. Conducting the series is Andrew Parrott, and together with the soloist, he brings all his expertise in period performance practise to bear in interpretations that in many ways are as fresh and revolutionary as those of the sonata cycle. The present disc, with Concertos No.1 and No.3, is the first of a cycle of four, and was recorded with solo piano, without a lid, placed in the middle of the orchestra As Ronald Brautigam explains in the liner notes: 'I truly believe that what Beethoven wanted was chamber music rather than a battle between orchestra and soloist, and this makes for a wonderfully interactive set-up-, where individual players have far m ore contact with the pianist than in a regular concert set-up'.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Sviatoslav Richter, piano; Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Karel Ancerl; Live recordings: 1956 & 1962. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: Concerto No. 1 in C major for piano and orchestra, Op. 15; Concerto No. 3 in C minor for piano and orchestra, Op. 37

On two previous albums, Yevgeny Sudbin and Osmo Vänskä have released Beethoven’s three last piano concertos to critical acclaim. Distinctions include Editor’s Choice in Gramophone and top marks from the Italian magazine Musica and the German website Klassik-Heute.de, and performances have been described as ‘electrifying’ (classicfm.com), ‘absolutely stunning’ (Fanfare) and ‘a Beethoven experience you will not want to miss’ (ClassicsToday.com). For the final release in their cycle, Sudbin and Vänskä have travelled to Helsinki to team up with Tapiola Sinfonietta, one of the top Nordic ensembles, and well suited for these earlier and more classical of Beethoven’s concertos. Of the two, the one we now know as the Second was actually begun several years before Concerto No. 1, and indeed even before Beethoven left Bonn for Vienna. During the following decade, Beethoven returned to the score repeatedly and made substantial revisions – including composing a new final movement – and ultimately the C major concerto reached publication first. Both concertos were conceived long before Beethoven's involvement with the symphonic genre, and the influence of Mozart and Haydn is evident in the interaction between the orchestra and the soloist – but Beethoven's individual spirit is nevertheless unmistakeable.