One of the best pianists of our generation, Leif Ove Andsnes has been dazzling audiences with the five Beethoven piano concertos for the last four years. He performs primarily with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, but has also worked with the best orchestras and conductors across the globe. Award winnin film-maker Phil Grabsky has been with Andsnes throughout this journey, and now presents this film which is much more than a tour documentary. Rather, this release is an in depth exploration into a misunderstood artist- Ludwig van Beethoven- as is revealed in these five works. “His Beethoven is revolutionary… it’s phenomenal…” (Der Rheinische Post) “Shines with some of the best Beethoven playing you will ever hear.” (BBC)

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Op. 57 "Appassionata" - Op. 27,2 "M

Having already enjoyed substantial reissue programmes devoted to Furtwangler, Klemperer and Toscanini, I was delighted to receive the initial instalment of Sony Classical's admirable "Bruno Walter: The Edition", doubly so in view of its superb presentation, exceptional technical quality (the best of Walter's stereo recordings were always remarkably lifelike) and its rich trawl of topdrawer repertory. This particular feast includes two violin concertos: the Beethoven with Szigeti, and the Mendelssohn with Milstein-interpretatively worlds apart but instructive in that Walter's accompaniments reflect (and respect) the very different styles of his two soloists. Then there is a two-CD Wagner compilation [ Sony 64459] that gathers together all the stereo Columbia Symphony material and adds a 45-minute Siegfried Idyll rehearsal, and a magnificent run of Mahler: the NYPO Dos Lied von der Erde (with Ernst Haefliger and Mildred Miller—and in my view one of the most profoundly inspired ever made, certainly in terms of the conducting and orchestral playing [ Sony 64455]), the NYPO Fourth and Fifth Symphonies (from 1945 and 1947, respectively), the Lieder und Gesfinge aus der Jugendzeit (with Desi Halban and Walter at the piano) and the stereo Mahler recordings—the First, Second and Ninth Symphonies (the latter appended with "A Talking Portrait" and "A Working Portrait"), and the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Mildred Miller.

-- Robert Cowan, Gramophone [2/1995]

Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61 & Romances for

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.

Beethoven: The Late String Quartets

BEETHOVEN String Quartets, op. 18/1–6 • Budapest Qrt • BRIDGE 9342/AC (2 CDs: 135:18.


This set completes Bridge’s offering, in three installments, of a complete live Beethoven cycle by the Budapest Quartet, drawn from concerts at the Library of Congress over the period of its long residency there, from the war years to the early ’60s.


As a fixture of the American musical scene in the mid 20th century, the Budapest Quartet was in many ways the chamber-music equivalent of what Toscanini and the NBC Symphony represented on the orchestral scene: a similar “high Modernist” approach of score-based rigor, with virtuoso execution characterized by tonal luster, rhythmic brio, and expressive intensity. Although the sound and interpretations are familiar from the quartet’s studio recordings from the 1930s (CDs on Biddulph) and early and late 1950s (mono cycle on United Archives, stereo remakes recently collected in a bargain box in Sony’s Masters series), these live versions consistently score in their extra keenness, freshness, and the kind of spontaneous risk-taking only possible at a live event.


Quartets Nos. 1–3 are taken from concerts in 1944, with Edgar Ortenberg on second violin (the notes inform us that No. 3, from March 9 of that year, was actually his debut appearance with the group); No. 5 dates from a year earlier, when Alexander Schneider still occupied that seat. First movements are tightly coiled, with perfectly balanced tonal weight, knife-edge attack, and a wonderfully supple molding of the themes within a rigorously classical conception of unified tempo. (Exposition repeats are consistently omitted throughout.) Slow movements have great expressive immediacy, luxuriant tonal fullness, and often a penchant for dynamic and articulative extremes—for two examples, hear first violin Joseph Roisman’s breathtaking emergence from inaudibility in the messa di voce beginning of his melody in the Adagio of No. 1, and the radiant textural saturation the group achieves in the last variation of the Andante cantabile from No. 5. Scherzos leap off the page with rapier-like cut and thrust; finales are forcefully projected with trenchant, weighty brilliance (No. 1), blistering brio (No. 2), and mercurial group reflexes at an extreme tempo (No. 3).


Two late performances (No. 4 from 1962, No. 6 from 1960) undeniably display evidence of a collective hardening of the arteries, with thicker sonorities, less responsive interplay, and some moments of less than perfect tuning (though these should not be exaggerated). Even so, there is ample compensation in a lifetime’s accumulated interpretive wisdom, with a dramatic and emotional engagement that remains highly compelling—in No. 4 in C Minor, hear the richly affecting consolation they draw from the first movement’s contrasting major-mode theme, or their highly original conception of the third movement’s Trio, with a long-breathed gradual acceleration.


The sound is close-miked and clear, vividly transferred at a high level. There is some distortion in the loudest passages from the 1940s recordings, though this will present no obstacle to the set’s obvious target audience of historic collectors.


As a bonus we have a nine-minute rehearsal fragment from 1944, a fascinating glimpse of the quartet at work on the exposition of the E-Major Molto Adagio from the Second (E-Minor) “Razoumovsky” Quartet. There is a lively back-and-forth (in Russian—naturally—with no translation provided), with painstaking attention (as one would expect) to tuning and rhythmic control, and the vivid sense of an interpretation being hammered out among four strong-willed individuals. The atmosphere is highly concentrated, with no hint of comfortable routine.


Besides being a mandatory purchase for those collecting the cycle, this set will be self-recommending to chamber-music aficionados and historic collectors generally.


FANFARE: Boyd Pomeroy

The partnership between the late Viennese pianist Paul Badura-Skoda and Michel Bernstein, the French record producer who founded Arcana, proved to be one of the most fruitful and long-lasting relationships in the history of recording. Among their most significant achievements is the set comprising the complete piano sonatas of Franz Schubert played on period instruments. Recorded in the 1990s, it has long been a benchmark and one of the Arcana catalogue’s top bestsellers. As part of the Beethoven celebrations, Arcana is now releasing a new edition of a related recording made in the 1980s that has been out of print for many years. To this day it is one of the few complete recordings on period instruments, and is in many respects an unrivalled achievement.

“For the complete recording of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, the performer has chosen seven instruments of the period. Period instruments are sometimes victims of haphazard conservation and hasty or unscrupulous restoration. However, the best of them possess an inimitable sound, a richness of color that is almost unconceivable and an indefinable charm. That is the reason why Paul Badura-Skoda works solely with original instruments, accepting the risk of difficulties in order to bring out the poetry and radiance of the discourse.” (Michel Bernstein)

REVIEW:

This reissue is a real gift to music lovers who have known the original records at Astrée, unavailable for a long time; for those who discover them today, wonderment is guaranteed.

Those who are fluent in English will delve into the fascinating booklet of about fifty pages signed by the late Harry Halbreich who left us in 2016. We will also admire the beautiful color photographs of the pianofortes. This reissue may well be one of the great events in commemoration of 250 years of Beethoven.

– Crescendo (France; english translation)

This Beethoven cycle is beautiful. Badura-Skoka's interpretation is transparent, consistent and robust, the piano's sound improves as later sonatas approach, and the Graf fortepiano is a superior instrument. A sublime edition. Can not be missed!

– Stretto (English translation from Dutch)

This live recording was performed at Princeton University in celebration of the 100th birthday of scholar, philanthropist and human rights advocate William H. Scheide. The subject of PBS's television special Ode to Joy will air nationally on local PBjS stations. Recognized as one of the world's leading choral ensembles, the WEstminster Symphonic Choir has recorded and performed with major orchestras under virtually every internationally acclaimed conductor of our era. Prepared for this performance by Joe Miller, director of the choral activities at Westminster Choir College, the ensemble is composed of students at Westminster Choir College of Rider University. Mark Laycock made his conducting debut at age 21 with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Since then he has conducted more than 2,000 works with a wide array of orchestras and opera companies in Europe, Asia, Israel and North America. He has appeared on numerous occasions with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra, among others.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9

After their prize-winning Mendelssohn symphonies cycle and acclaimed Mozart symphonies album, the NDR Radiophilharmonie and its chief conductor Andrew Manze now present Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh symphonies. While Beethoven’s Fifth is arguably the most famous symphony in the history of music, the Seventh counts as one of the most rhythmically-advanced pieces of nineteenth-century music; an “apotheosis of dance”, to quote Richard Wagner. Both works display Beethoven’s mastery of and audacious approach to musical form as well as the richness of his melodic invention, and are generally praised as paragons of symphonic composition. Andrew Manze brings his experience in the field of historically informed performance to the polished symphonic sound of the NDR Radiophilharmonie, providing an ambience that fits these early nineteenth-century works like a glove.

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REVIEWS:

The finale of the Seventh goes faster even than the already zippy metronome mark, and is tremendously exciting. It’s also quite graceful in its way, thanks in large part to Manze’s scrupulous attention to dynamic indications and articulation. Indeed, there’s an exceptional lightness of touch in much of this Symphony – sample the spring and sparkle of the dotted rhythms in the first movement’s Vivace or the nimbleness and unexpected delicacy of the third-movement Presto.

The Fifth has similar attributes in terms of clarity, balance and rhythmic verve but is in no way ‘Beethoven light’, as some historically informed performances have been labelled.

– Gramophone

A consummate interpreter, Manze never plays fast and loose with tempos, nor with radically over-emphasised dynamics. The rigour of his period performance practice and expressive consideration brings clarity and freshness, the sound finely judged, full of breadth, never ploughing through the symphony’s vulnerable moments.

– BBC Music Magazine

Dating from the 1970s, Rafael Kubelik’s incisive and acclaimed reading of Beethoven’s second and fifth symphonies is the latest release in the Remastered Classics series from PENTATONE, performed with panache by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. For a work that was written during an unhappy period of his life, Beethoven’s second symphony nevertheless bristles with infectious humour and vitality. Its striking innovations startled contemporary audiences, from the imposing opening to the capricious scherzo and the witty, energetic finale, but Beethoven’s indebtedness to the classical symphonies of Haydn and Mozart are still quite apparent. Goethe described Beethoven’s turbulent fifth symphony as “very great, quite wild; it makes one fear that the house might fall down.” Its visceral energy is announced right from the start with its famous opening notes whose hammer blows drive the development of the symphony – from the dark, brooding drama of the opening movement to the spectacular and radiant outburst in the triumphant final movement. It’s one of Beethoven’s most riveting and compelling works and one of his deservedly most popular. These recordings form part of the acclaimed cycle of Beethoven symphonies Rafael Kubelik made for Deutsche Grammophon in the 1970s, each symphony performed by a different orchestra.

As the market for high-quality multi-channel recording is pushing forward, TACET is leading the charge. This monumental release features all 9 of Beethoven’s symphonies recorded in incredible Real Surround Sound. With five and a half hours of genius interpretation from Wojciech Rajski and the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, this is a must-have for Beethoven fans. Even if you’ve heard all of Beethoven’s symphonies time and time again, you’ve never heard them with such clear, stellar sound quality. This is the closest you can get to sitting right in Beethoven’s audience.

Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 4 & Variations

This album markes the fourth volume of the complete recordings of Beethoven's piano trios by the Austrian TrioVanBeethoven. It opens with the Trio, Op. 1/3 in C minor. Preceding this last work of hte group of piano trios, Op. 1 were a great number of uncounted works and sketches like the Variations, Op. 44, whose first drafts can be dated back to as early as the year 1792. The famous "Gassenhauer" Trio Op. 11 which was originally written for clarinet instead of the violin, got its sobriquet from the final movement of the work, comprising variation son a then very popular melody from the opera "L'amor marinaro ossia il corsaro" by Joseph Weigl from 1797. The simplicity of this tune in contrast to the normally more serious and complex writing of Beethoven enthused his contemporary critics, and it was advocated he were to write more natural rather than strained pieces. Why 'van Beethoven'? Beethoven stands for independence of mind, for revolutionary ideas, for music that reaches far beyond his own time. Beethoven was a "lone wolf", but at the same time the oentral point of departure for new traditions of composition, such as the lineage from Brahms to Schoenberg. In its foundation year in 2001, the trio held its debut at the renowned Festival Tage der Alten Musik in Herne. Since then, the ensemble has appeared in Austria, Germany, Italy, Frankd, the UK, Poland, Serbia and Greece. Recently, the TrioVanBeethoven has set accents with two concert series in Upper Austria and Styria. The trio is releasing a complete recording of the piano trios by Ludwig van Beethoven for the eminent Austrian label Gramola.