Beethoven: The Complete Violin Sonatas

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9 • Jan Willem de Vriend, cond; Annemarie Kremer (sop); Wilke te Brummelstroete (mez); Marcel Reijans (ten); Geert Smits (bar); Consensus Vocalis; Netherlands SO • CHALLENGE CC72532 (SACD: 63:14)

Jan Willem de Vriend completes his survey of the Beethoven symphonies with this exciting new Ninth. His excellent orchestra is a modern ensemble with the addition of period brass (I presume from the sound that natural horns are employed). This cycle is the latest addition to the relatively small number of sets available in SACD multichannel sound; for that reason alone it deserves some attention.

The performance begins with a dramatic, emphatic opening with timpani pounding home the punctuation. Vriend creates excellent tension through the contrasting major and minor modes, the former theme especially poignant. Philip Herreweghe, in the Ninth included in his own compendium of the symphonies, isn’t as intensely dramatic, and his touch is lighter in the percussion. I prefer Vriend, who is closer in spirit to Paavo Järvi (RCA), though Järvi employs a brisker tempo, and his orchestra hasn’t got the punch of Vriend’s full-size outfit.

The exuberant energy of the Scherzo is manifest in this performance, and the timpanist is once again an impressive presence. Repeats are observed, and the tempo seems perfect, the Trio not too fast but still providing contrast with the Scherzo theme. Vriend allows the Adagio to take its time without any sense of drag; Herreweghe is about 30 seconds quicker but doesn’t inject quite the same level of cantabile phrasing as is heard in this new account.

The clamorous opening of the finale is fast and furious; the basses and cellos then have their say—Vriend has his cellos up front to the right, with basses behind, so this episode is especially vivid. Baritone Geert Smits has the timbre of a bass-baritone, and his delivery is heroic but never brusque. The Consensus Vocalis sounds like a medium-size choir, numerous enough to add heft to their contributions. Vriend’s Turkish March allows Marcel Reijans the space to hold forth with spirit (and breath). The double fugue is truly joyful, while the four soloists are exemplary in their subsequent quartet. Vriend guides the symphony to a triumphant close with a presto that is coherent but exhilarating.

The sound is excellent, though some may prefer an aural perspective that is closer. I initially felt that the production was bass-shy, but within this mid-hall perspective, the orchestral balance is actually truer than productions that feature a booming bass sound, and the amount of instrumental detail is also notable.

With this release, Vriend’s entire cycle is enhanced, so that I would now place it on par with that of Herreweghe on PentaTone (though this Challenge set now consists of six discs to the five of Herreweghe). Given the overall excellence of the performances and sound, I can recommend this new Ninth as worthy of even the more fully stocked Beethoven collection.

FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

Also available on Blu-ray

A bold attempt to recapture and redefine Beethoven for the 21st century.

Decades ago, when classical music on record was emerging as a mass market product for the first time, Beethoven interpretation sounded big, bold, slow and muscular, like a pronouncement from Mount Olympus. Great interpreters of bygone days, such as Furtwängler, Klemperer or Walter, emphasised the monumental nature of Beethoven’s symphonies with large-scale playing, big sound and often luxurious tempi. The standard benchmark for this style – often inaccurately, in my view – was Karajan’s 1962 set with the Berlin Philharmonic, the first Beethoven series that was planned and recorded as a cycle. Hugely influential in its day, Karajan’s Beethoven seemed to lay down a template that many other conductors followed. Then with the rise of the period performance movement, and especially in the 1990s, attitudes to Beethoven changed, and with the emergence of interpreters like Norrington, Harnoncourt, Mackerras and Zinman a new style of Beethoven playing emerged: lean, lithe, smaller-scale and more transparent. This then became the new orthodoxy, and even venerable institutions like the Vienna Philharmonic adopted it in their 2002 set with Simon Rattle. The achievement of Christian Thielemann, in this new Beethoven cycle, also with the Vienna Philharmonic, is to argue a convincing case that the older style of Beethoven playing is still relevant to the 21 ^st century and that the muscular, broader approach to Beethoven even now has something to say.
 
Right from the start it is apparent that Thielemann is, for want of a better phrase, an old-school conductor in his approach to Beethoven, but that isn’t to say that he hasn’t learnt anything from the discoveries of period practitioners like Harnoncourt and Zinman: rather he has listened to their revelations and responded to them in his own unique way, producing a Beethoven approach that is distinctly his own. The booklet notes for these DVDs describe Thielemann as seeking “to restore to the Classical and Romantic repertory the sort of musical riches and unprecedented expressivity that we associate with a conductor like Wilhelm Furtwängler”. It’s a big claim, but it’s not as simple as that. The critic and musicologist Joachim Kaiser, who presents all the extra documentaries, describes Thielemann as “an adventurous conservative”, and that’s a much better way to put it. Thielemann combines the best of the old with the best of the new, producing an organic, vitally alive Beethoven cycle with its roots in the old school but with some period influences too.
 
The first things I listened to in this set were the two overtures. Thielemann’s slow, monumental approach to the opening of Egmont makes it much more powerful and accentuates the contrast with the Allegro, and this characterises his way with the symphonies too. His First begins slowly and with a monumental edge, but this enables him to keep something in reserve for later so that the Menuet has undeniable “oomph”. Likewise, in the Second the introduction is unashamedly a slow one, and it is all the more effective for that. When it begins, the main section of the movement is really con brio, bristling with energy and crackling with style; judging from the musicians’ faces they are clearly enjoying themselves. Thielemann takes the Larghetto at what is - for today - a daringly unhurried tempo, making it mellow and very beautiful, and here, as throughout this cycle, there is an incomparable blend to the Vienna string sound which really comes alive in DTS surround sound. I loved the way Thielemann obviously teases out every phrase, extracting every ounce of beauty and meaning. Some might call this ponderous, but it’s all of a piece with his vision for Beethoven and, for me, it really worked. Real sharpness of attack cranks up the Scherzo to the n ^th degree and the finale goes off with the energy of a Catherine Wheel. In the accompanying documentary Thielemann denies entirely the idea of a great gulf between the Second and Third Symphonies: instead he sees one as a natural next step after the other and I, for one, was convinced. This big, ballsy approach works just as well for the Eighth, in no way a miniature symphony when performed like this. The first movement explodes off the page, and the menuet has as much swagger as the scherzo has delicacy. The finale is electric too.
 
The most important thing about Thielemann’s Beethoven is that it is responsive and alive. For many this may also be the most controversial thing about it too, particularly in his approach to tempi, which is remarkably flexible. I doubt he has taken much heed of Beethoven’s metronome markings, but even if he had then he disregards them freely as and when he needs to. With Coriolan, for example, he pulls the tempo around all over the place for dramatic effect, with an accelerando here and a rallentando there. It lends colour and drama to the pacing and, for me, it worked, but I can appreciate how it might infuriate others. This is true of his approach to the symphonies too, but it’s more controversial. In the opening of the Eroica, for example, he adopts a myriad different tempi for the different sections of the movement: even in the first statement of the first subject there are plenty of ralls and hesitations before the subject unfolds fully. During the run-up to the crashing discords of the development the movement threatens to grind to a halt completely, before speeding up as the oboe theme enters. For me it’s an effective – and quite exciting – depiction of the drama of chaos and renewal, but some will find it off-putting.
 
There are also times when I think Thielemann’s approach to tempi seems too self-conscious, most damagingly in the opening burst of the finale of the Fifth. After what had been a very exciting and purposeful account of the symphony so far, Thielemann slows up dramatically for the first two bars of the finale with the entry of the extra brass, but then speeds up enormously for bar three onwards. He then adopts the same strategy for the exposition repeat and the recapitulation. To my ears this distends the music and distorts it to the point of wilfulness. It wrecks the sense of organic growth that had been present in the music thus far. In the Ninth it is much more successful though - particularly in the first and last movements. The first subject emerges from the opening like the sun from a gas cloud and builds up a titanic power that never lets up. Furthermore, the finale’s contrasting moods seem almost to give Thielemann carte blanche to try out every technique in his armoury, which he does to scintillating effect. The opening paragraph is responsive and dynamic, like an operatic recitative, and an elongated pause before the first appearance of the Ode to Joy theme gives its unfolding a sense of cumulative power that builds steadily. The great double fugue after the “Turkish” section is a core piece of the architecture: he slows down in the lead up to it, making it burst onto the stage with electric power, and then slows down drastically in the lead-up to the joyous, full statement of the Ode, rendering it all the more ebullient. The ensuing sections are all very different, but Seid umschlungen seems to be, for him, the central core of the whole work. Soloists are all very good, though Zeppenfeld’s bass doesn’t have the clarion quality it needs. The choral singing is also excellent, and the DTS surround really comes into its own here.
 
In some ways it is the most rhythmically unstable symphonies that are the most successful. The Seventh presents Thielemann with a real challenge which he meets triumphantly, shaping a living, breathing organism from Beethoven’s notes. I have seldom heard the bounce of the last two movements of the Fourth played so convincingly as here. Referring to the Fourth’s finale, Thielemann says that the players and conductor must have absolutely rigorous control in order to evoke an atmosphere of the music spiralling out of control. This is done very successfully, but could just as easily apply to the whole of the Seventh too. The Pastoral is also a delight: warm and expansive with a real feeling of joy in its enjoyment of the natural and spiritual worlds, though the entry of the brass in the storm could have been more decisive.
 
In some ways this is a try-before-you-buy set, as Thielemann’s interpretative decisions won’t be to everyone’s taste. However, the playing and the presentation surely will. The Vienna Philharmonic clearly enjoy a very close relationship with this conductor and they seem to relish the opportunity to play with him. The beauty of the string sound and the character of the wind playing are second to none, and they are captured brilliantly in the splendour of the Muskiverein. Furthermore, the quality of the surround sound is excellent: the centre speaker is perhaps a little too prominent, but the immersive experience is most effective. Each director manages to capture the picture well too, putting the eye where the ear suggests it should be, though Agnes Méth’s filming of the Eroica is the least successful, choppy and unsure of itself at times.
 
The other USP of this set is the series of accompanying documentaries. Each symphony has an individual film lasting between 50 and 60 minutes, analysing the background of the work and deconstructing Thielemann’s interpretation. The presenter of each documentary is Joachim Kaiser, the grand old man of German music criticism. In each film he gives his own view of the symphony and then engages Thielemann in a conversation to tease out why Thielemann has come to the interpretations he has. I was quite excited about watching these, but they weren’t as revelatory as I hoped they would be. The main problem is that too much of each film consists merely of repeating the footage of the symphony you have just watched. For the shorter symphonies more than half of the running time comprises simply repeating what you have already seen. The most successful documentary is the one on the Ninth, partly because of what is said about it but also because there is less space for mere repetition. Kaiser and Thielemann enjoy sparking ideas off one another and much of what they say is interesting and memorable. We also get some very interesting comparisons with other filmed Beethoven symphonies from Karajan, Bernstein and Paavo Järvi. In truth, though, while they may have been fairly interesting for understanding Thielemann’s approach, I can’t say they fundamentally altered my view of Beethoven’s symphonies beyond a little insight here or there.
 
Still, even without these documentaries this set would demand the attention of most music-lovers. Thielemann’s Beethoven is rigorous, intellectual and well considered, even if you don’t always agree with him, and the playing is outstanding throughout. Unitel has given us an interpretation which won’t replace the classics but is worthy to sit alongside them, a bold attempt to recapture and redefine Beethoven for the 21 ^st century.
 
-- Simon Thompson, MusicWeb InternationaL

Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphonies Nos 1–9
Coriolan Overture
Egmont Overture

Annette Dasch, soprano
Mihoko Fujimura, contralto
Piotr Beczala, tenor
Georg Zeppenfeld, bass

Wiener Singverein
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Christian Thielemann, conductor

Recorded live at the Goldener Saal der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.

Bonus:
- Discovering Beethoven – nine hour-long documentaries, one on each symphony featuring Christian Thielemann and Joachim Kaiser.

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Chinese
Running time: 7 hours 26 mins (symphonies) + 8 hours 30 mins (documentaries)
No. of DVDs: 9 (8x DVD 9 + 1x DVD 5)

Beethoven's slighting of the sting trio for the string quartet after 1800 led to nearly a century of dismissal of the form for most serious composers to follow despite his youthful production of the five string trio masterpieces he turned out before age 30; indeed, many musicians and scholars have preferred the mature Trios Op. 9 to the subsequent String Quartets Op. 18. The Jacques Thibaud String Trio, recipients of tremendous acclaim from audiences and critics alike throughout Europe, Japan and North America, present the complete string trios by Beethoven on it's new 2 CD audite release.

Beethoven: String Quartets, Opp. 135 and 131

This is a bright, lively, and bracing performance of Beethoven's massive quartet, made so by the inclusion of the optional Grosse Fugue Op. 133 as a finale. Actually, the Kodály Quartet programs the shorter "replacement" finale first, and its continuity of style from the preceding Cavatina makes it sound naturally like Beethoven's first thoughts on the matter. It's a smart and fetching movement--Borodin apparently thought so too, as he seemingly borrowed the second theme for his own String Quartet No. 1. But the Kodály's reading is not all froth and bubbles: they really point up the underlying intellectual rigor of the first movement and the subtle seriousness of the following presto. Turning to the Grosse Fugue, the Kodálys miraculously make it sound more like a piece of music, and less like the sawhorse it can and often does. This is one of those Beethoven works that you respect more than you love, and though I was very impressed by the Emerson Quartet's nigh-unmatchable precision and speed, I found myself warming to the music more in the Kodály's human-scaled performance. Naxos' full sound makes this excellent release all the much more ingratiating.

– Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

REVIEWS:
Fanfare (7-8/98, pp.91-92) - "...These recordings are more than merely competent; they are fine enough to bear comparison with any set....These are four skilled artists playing fine instruments; intonation is consistently reliable..."

As the Naxos Beethoven Quartet cycle heads toward completion, the Kodály Quartet turns in some of its finest playing to date. Particularly impressive in the E-flat Op. 127 quartet, the four players spin out the second movement variations with pliant lyricism, effecting gorgeously shaded dynamic contrasts in the Scherzando Vivace. The Kodálys may not plunge into the Op. 59's opening Allegro with the virtuosic confidence marking the Alban Berg Quartett's EMI studio version, or the better-recorded Alexander Quartet (Arte Nova); on the other hand, I like the dark charm they bring to the Minuet movement. The fugal finale is taken slightly under Beethoven's all-but-impossible metronome indication. While the music's dangerous edge is compromised, the results gain in linear clarity and uplifting momentum. An attractive coupling, all told, and worth much more than its bargain price. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

REVIEWS:
Fanfare (7-8/98, pp.91-92) - "...These recordings are more than merely competent; they are fine enough to bear comparison with any set....These are four skilled artists playing fine instruments; intonation is consistently reliable..."

Beethoven: String Quartets, Op. 59, No. 1, 'Rasumovsky' and

Beethoven: String Quartets, Op. 18, Nos. 5 and 6

Includes sonata(s) for piano by Ludwig van Beethoven. Soloist: Dino Ciani.

Chamber music arrangements of symphonies were very common in the late 18th and early 19th century, and it is probably true that a large proportion of the people who were familiar with the symphonic repertoire at the time were so because of them. The Second Symphony is the only one for which Beethoven himself produced an arrangement, although there is evidence that his student Ferdinand Ries did the bulk of the work, with Beethoven adding the finishing touches. One of the three piano trios published under op. 1, the second announces its pretentions to the symphonic genre earlier than its siblings and has several common points with the Second Symphony that was written ten years later. The Allegretto in E flat, Hess 48, probably was one of the first works for piano trio that Beethoven wrote, dating back to the early 1790s. Its form is a short, but humorous conversation between three different instruments.

Beethoven’s primary reason for settling in Vienna in 1792 was to study with Joseph Haydn, who at the time was widely considered the greatest living composer. Beethoven’s three Piano Trios op. 1 were the first compositions that he deemed important enough to give an opus number. They were dedicated to Prince Karl Lichnowsky, a patron of Beethoven in whose house he lived for some time. According to Beethoven’s lifelong friend Ferdinand Ries, Haydn was complimentary about the set of trios. The trios combine various elements that would have been familiar to Beethoven’s contemporaries. Less familiar, however, would be the fact that the trios contain four movements rather than the three that had been traditional in this genre. Although changes from major to minor had been common in the music of previous generations, where they would normally apply to just the last chord, Beethoven employs this technique more extensively here than was probably common at that time. This recording was made using a Chris Maene Concert Grand built in 2017. This remarkable instrument combines the knowledge and materials used in modern piano building with those found in older historical instruments.

Overall, I’d certainly strongly endorse the complete Nimbus set for reliable performances.

The arrival on the scene of a bright new talent in the Beethoven Piano Sonatas in the form of the young Korean pianist HJ Lim (EMI Classics 50999 7041855 2) has prompted me to return to the Nimbus set. The virtues of complete sets by the likes of Alfred Brendel (Philips 438 1342 – see June 2011/2 Download Roundup) and Wilhelm Kempff (DG – see below) are well enough known but, for some reason, we seem never to have got around to reviewing the Nimbus set with Bernard Roberts. Not the least of its virtues is that, with some ingenious organisation, the CD set is far less bulky than you might imagine: the 11 CDs come in two double-size cases, holding five discs plus booklet and six discs respectively, all housed inside a cardboard slip case.
 
I actually started to write a review of the complete Nimbus set a year ago, and lost what I’d written, apart from some notes and jottings, when my computer crashed. I was able to piece some of these together in time for the November 2011/2 Download Roundup, but fortunately, when I lost what I’d written, my friend Geoffrey Molyneux, who knows a great deal more about pianism than I ever did and has owned the Nimbus set for some time, came to the rescue. I promised then to patch my notes back together to finish that review but got around only partially to doing it.
 
Whereas Roberts’ recordings arose from mature consideration, HJ Lim has committed the whole œuvre to disc at an early stage in her career, whether from brave assurance or youthful bravado I was very interested to find out. You can do so for yourself from the Naxos Music Library if you have access to that extremely valuable service. They offer both the first two 2-CD single volumes and the complete set. As they also have the Roberts recordings, that’s a good way to compare for yourself.
 
Volume 1 from Lim contains Sonatas 29 Hammerklavier, 11, 26 Les Adieux, 4, 9, 10, 13 Quasi una fantasia and 14 Moonlight ( 730092, 2 CDs for around £12.50). The complete set (omitting the Op.49 sonatas because Beethoven didn’t intend them for publication) comes on 8 CDs for around £40 ( 4649522). Those willing to download can obtain Volume 1 for £6.99 from sainsburysentertainment.co.uk. They also have the complete 8-CD set to download for £10.99, though you may prefer to obtain this from amazon.co.uk for £12.99, complete with the pdf version of the booklet.
 
Lim opens both Volume 1 and the complete set with the Hammerklavier Sonata. She takes the first movement at a cracking pace – 10:24 against Roberts’ 11:42, making her performance commensurate with Earl Wild, at 10:20 one of the fastest ever accounts (Ivory Classics 76001). I was impressed by her technique; it makes a barnstorming opening to the set, but it’s all a bit too much unvaried and ‘hell-for-leather’; at his slightly slower tempo Roberts achieves much more light and shade in this movement and throughout the work, not least in his reading of the slow movement, where his 17:58 allows him to achieve Innigkeit without sounding portentous. At 12:50 Lim is certainly appassionato; she doesn’t sound as rushed as I might have expected from the different timings, but she doesn’t quite achieve the affective quality demanded by the marking con molto sentimento.
 
Artur Schnabel’s recording of this sonata may come on an album subtitled ‘Scholar of the Piano’ (EMI Icons 2650642) but there’s much more than scholarship involved in his performance. This remains my benchmark, especially for the slow movement: his tempo almost exactly matches that of Roberts, but he captures the affective qualities even more without ever sounding ponderous. His recording comes with a degree of light surface noise, but it’s never excessive and the piano tone is truly remarkable for its age. Nevertheless, Roberts offers a better-recorded modern alternative that I can certainly live with.
 
I should add that reviewers have been very much divided about Lim’s performances; some have seen a great deal more of value in them than I have. In the finale of the Hammerklavier I hear some of the qualities that her admirers postulate – she’s actually very little faster overall than Schnabel and her playing is certainly risoluto – but my own ultimate judgement hinges on whether I would wish to add her complete recording or Volume 1 to my over-crowded collection. I have to say that I wouldn’t, even at the attractive prices that I’ve mentioned.
 
On the other hand, I would certainly have considered purchasing the Roberts set, especially at the special price of £28 post free for which it’s offered by MusicWeb International. You won’t even find them as a download for less. I know that I’m effectively blowing our own trumpet, but I dipped into sonatas from every period of Beethoven’s working life, comparing what I heard with other versions that I knew, and found that Roberts stood up well to the competition in every respect. He is not always top dog in a particular sonata, but nearly always close. The whole set is so inexpensive that I would recommend beginners to buy it and to add individual recordings later.
 
CD 1 of the Nimbus set gets off to a quiet start with Sonata No.1 from 1795. Though there are signs of the distinctive Beethoven manner to come here, Roberts doesn’t stress these by over-egging the pudding; he gives a very satisfying, neat, tidy, but not too delicate account, taken at a fairly brisk pace throughout, though never sounding rushed. The same is true of No.2 and No.3, which open CD 2 and CD 3 respectively.
 
You might expect Lim to do particularly well in these youthful sonatas, so I turned to her account of No.1 in expectation. Predictably her tempi are consistently a little faster than Roberts’, but not to a huge extent. There’s certainly lightness of touch but it’s allied with underlying strength and I enjoyed this performance.
 
Nimbus CD 1 closes with the Appassionata Sonata, from Beethoven’s middle period. Roberts gives this, right from the start, the soulful treatment which its name implies. In the opening movement he takes Beethoven’s marking allegro assai with a pinch of salt, perhaps thinking, as I have seen suggested, that Beethoven sometimes confused the French assez (fairly) and the Italian assai (very). Whatever the reason, 10:13 – almost a minute longer than most performances – seems to me to be reasonable for this movement, especially as Roberts indulges in a degree of rubato (not excessive) to achieve it. I’m with Roberts and his slightly weightier tempo here, but if you are looking for a compromise, Jenö Jandó on Naxos (8.550294, with No.21 and No.23) – as usual reliable without being exceptional – splits the difference between Roberts and the ‘mainstream’, as does Alfred Brendel on his early Vox recording (CDX-5042, 2 CDs: Nos.16-19, 21-23 and 26 – or Alto ALC1016, Nos.8, 14, 23 and 26). In his recording of the Appassionata with the Emperor Concerto (Philips 468 6662, with VPO/Rattle), Brendel is even closer to Roberts in this movement.
 
There’s respect for the marking andante con moto, too, from Roberts in the second movement, though I might have welcomed a slightly faster pace at the outset. In the finale he observes both parts of the marking ( allegro non troppo), so there’s nothing headlong, but there is plenty of power and emotion and the concluding bars are taken at a virtuoso pace. Overall I found this a very satisfying account, bringing a degree of new light to a well-known work without being at all quirky. Listening to it a second time was even more convincing.
 
Predictably, Lim allies herself throughout with those who take a faster view of this sonata, though her tempi are not extreme she actually takes the opening movement slightly slower than Angela Hewitt on the first volume of her Beethoven recordings. Lim takes the finale at quite a lick but so, for example, does Vladimir Ashkenazy (Decca Eloquence 480 1309). Though her version certainly works for me, so too does Roberts’.
 
If HJ Lim has set her interpretations down at an early stage in her career, David Wilde is something of a wonder for the opposite reason – though well into his seventies, he’s only just entered the limelight, yet he plays with a combination of the technique of a young virtuoso and the maturity of a seasoned practitioner on his recording of Nos. 21 Waldstein, 17 Tempest and 31 (Delphian DCD34090: Recording of the Month and November 2011/2 Download Roundup.)
 
The d minor Sonata, Op.31/2, the Tempest, dates from the transitional period between the earliest works, such as the Op.18 Quartets, and the very productive middle period. This was the period of the Third Piano Concerto when Beethoven’s music was beginning to break away from the influence of the previous generation of Haydn and Salieri. Wilde takes a more expansive view of the first movement, adopts roughly the same tempo as Roberts for the adagio, and is slightly faster in the allegretto finale. I thought Roberts somewhat routine in this sonata, especially in the adagio, which sounds ponderous rather than affective.
 
I certainly preferred Wilde in the finale, though Brian Reinhart, for all his admiration of the album as a whole, had some reservations here. Roberts’ finale offers us the letter of the music with exemplary technique, but it seems to miss the last degree of joy. I appreciate that it’s allegretto, not allegro, but I felt that Wilde’s 7:05 was more in the spirit of the music than Roberts’s 7:26. The latter seems to offer a view of a composer who is not yet completely his own man, not yet what Roberts himself describes in the brief notes as ‘dynamic, deeply expressive and visionary’. Lim rattles through this movement at an unbelievable 6:01; that’s preferable to Roberts and I can only marvel that none of the phrasing is slurred at this speed, but Wilde’s is the version of this sonata to have.
 
Though my recommendation of the Nimbus set overall holds, therefore, this illustrates the hazards of relying on just one artist throughout; for this sonata I’d certainly add another version. Though I listened to Roberts on CD and to Wilde from an mp3 download (albeit at the full 320kb/s rate, from classicsonline.com), which ought to give Roberts an edge, Wilde sounded more dynamic from the very opening of the first movement, the slow movement a little more expressive and the finale a little more joyful. Both Wilde and Roberts are preferable here to Thomas Sauer, whose recording of the Op.31 Sonatas I found somewhat wanting (MSR Classics MS1284).
 
David Wilde offers the middle-period Waldstein Sonata, No.21 on his new recording, one of the works also available separately from Nimbus. Wilde, who takes both sections very slightly faster than Roberts, is closer to the general consensus and on the whole slightly preferable. This time I think the contest between the two pianists a little less weighted in Wilde’s favour, though generally agreeing with Brian Reinhart, who thought this probably the highlight of the disc.
 
Lim plays the Waldstein on the second disc of Volume 2 – CD4 of the complete set. Here again, the tempo of the first movement is too hectic: at 9:58 against Wilde’s 10:48 and Roberts’s 11:05, the music doesn’t have time to breathe. The same is true of the Introduzione, here tracked as a separate movement, as on the Wilde recording. The final Rondo is a real tour de force combined with real delicacy in the slower sections, though the transition between the two can sound a little abrupt and brutal.
 
BR was slightly less impressed by Wilde’s take on the late sonata, Op.110. These late works are as difficult to bring off as the Late String Quartets with which they are contemporaneous; both perplexed Beethoven’s audiences and both can provide difficult listening even for modern ears.
 
There’s one set of the late sonatas that remains my benchmark: Wilhelm Kempff on DG E453 0102, an inexpensive 2-disc set of Nos. 27-32 from his 1960s stereo recordings. I didn’t consult him in the case of the Hammerklavier for fear of seeming to be unduly influenced by nostalgia, but I can’t resist calling Kempff into comparison for No.31, Op.110. Jens Laurson, writing about Kempff’s recordings in a survey of what was available at the time (2009) finds it hard to pin down exactly what it is that makes Kempff’s Beethoven so superb. Overall I can’t better his summing up – ‘Solid, in the best, most empathetically positive sense of the word.’
 
Kempff and Roberts adopt almost exactly the same tempo in each of the opening movements of Op.110, with Wilde just a little slower than either. All three combine the cantabile and molto espressivo aspects of the first movement very well. Wilde is a little faster in the adagio and fuga but, again, there’s very little in it. Kempff, on whose recording DG run these last two sections together, takes just 9:44 overall against Roberts’ 11:24 and Wilde’s 11:15. Both sections from Kempff are faster: his adagio is certainly more non troppo than from Roberts or Wilde, without losing any of its emotive power, and his fugue is certainly allegro without losing sight of the non troppo marking and without sounding hurried. As good as Roberts and Wilde are here, I’d certainly also want Kempff’s recording as an alternative.
 
Lim is even faster in the adagio and fuga – tracked together on her recording, as with Kempff, and coming in at just 8:34. She starts the adagio portentously and she’s generally both affective and effective in this section; by the clock she’s the fastest of all the recordings that I compared without seeming unduly hasty. Indeed, though she’s a minute faster overall even than Kempff, I enjoyed her take on this sonata more than I had expected.
 
Lim ends volume 1 with the Moonlight Sonata. In the first movement she’s notably faster than Roberts and at least some of the magic is lost thereby; a good deal less than you might imagine from the comparative timings, but Roberts captures the fantasia and allows us much better to see that the nickname is apt. I didn’t enjoy Lim’s tentative account of the second movement; it’s as if she were thinking out her approach on the spot where Roberts knows where he’s going from the start. Lim’s finale is sufficiently agitato but here again there’s too much of a scrabble, even at a basic tempo not much faster than that of Roberts, and I thought her less than fully involved with the music.
 
One advantage of the Delphian recording concerns the inclusion of Wilde’s own notes, which are informative not only about the music but also about some of his decisions in performance. Even at the extremely advantageous price, I could have wished that Nimbus had also offered more detailed notes; you get just the playing times plus two pages on the music and a page on Bernard Roberts. If you purchase the Lim complete recording as a download from amazon.co.uk, the booklet of notes comes as part of the deal; I haven’t seen this, but I understand that some of HJ Lim’s thoughts are a little bizarre.
 
Overall, then, I’d certainly strongly endorse the complete Nimbus set for reliable performances – often much than that – a decent quality of recording and sheer value. I’d want to supplement it with individual recordings from some of the artists whom I’ve mentioned. Regrettably, despite their availability at a most advantageous price, neither of the individual twofers from HJ Lim’s new recordings nor her complete set would be among them. Give her Beethoven a few years to settle down and a complete set from her may well be well worth hearing. Meanwhile, if you’re looking to supplement Roberts with performances from a young pianist on top form, try Ingrid Fliter in Nos. 8 Pathétique, 17 and 23 Appassionata (EMI 045732: Bargain of the Month and September 2011/2 Download Roundup).
 
-- Brian Wilson, MusicWeb International