Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 5

Beethoven: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 5

BEETHOVEN: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2

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: Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas Nos. 27, 28, 30, 31 • Dina Ugorskaja (pn) • CAVI 8553299 (77:35)


Dina Ugorskaja, the daughter of the pianist Anatol Ugorski, is a Russian pianist and composer trained in Germany. Early in her career, she has already recorded Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” and op. 111 sonatas, the Chopin preludes, and a disc of Handel suites. The Sonata No. 27, the first of the 32 in which Beethoven uses German to indicate the movements’ tempo and character, is the piano work in which Beethoven’s late period begins, and Ugorskaja’s playing is fully alive to the quick changes of mood in its stark, febrile first movement, with extremely sensitive pacing of the rise and fall of each phrase, and careful weighing of tone. Her tempo for the second movement is on the slow side, but the melody is patiently shaped, as if sung, never in a hurry. This is a terrific performance of an elusive work.


Ugorskaja’s well-projected, unforced sound, and instinctively rhapsodic, though tasteful, responses to the music’s changes of character, are a good fit with the predominantly lyrical sonatas Nos. 30 and 31, though there’s real grandeur in her playing in the sections that need it. How beautifully she plays the right hand melody in No. 30’s third movement’s first variation, in which Beethoven uncannily anticipates the ornamented singing line of Chopin’s nocturnes, pieces that I’d love to hear her play. No. 31 receives a properly serious, thoughtfully savored reading, with highly expressive playing in the mystical latter sections of the piece. There are one or two moments in the first movement where Ugorskaja’s impulse to move the music forward detracts from the movement’s benign, stable character, but that’s a small quibble.


In op. 101 (Sonata No. 28), I was a little disappointed in her reading of the second movement, a tricky, fast march. In it, her espressivo approach, so winning in the sonata’s first movement, isn’t always rhythmically consistent enough in the repeated dotted rhythms. (Igor Levit’s splendid performance on a recent Sony disc has more speed and better control.) Nonetheless, Ugorskaja’s late Beethoven is cognizant of the sonatas’ details and structure, and manages to sound personally expressive without being self-indulgent. Cavi’s engineering captures the depth and variety of her splendid, “open” sound. Highly recommended.


FANFARE: Paul Orgel

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.

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.

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.

– Gramophone

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.

-- MusicWeb International

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

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.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Can we get into Beethoven’s creative mind, especially in the last phase of his life when he was coping with severe hearing loss? Tom Beghin’s new recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Opus 109, 110, and 111 is an artistic exploration of how Beethoven’s musicking was shaped by the work environment he created with the help of colleagues and friends. Not only does pianist Tom Beghin perform Beethoven’s trilogy of pianistic masterpieces on a magnificent new replica of Beethoven’s Broadwood piano, he uses a reconstruction of the Gehormaschine that was mounted on the composer’s piano so he could continue to create music as his hearing declined. “You do hear better when you bring your head under this machine, don’t you?” Andre Stein asked Beethoven. Two centuries later, we too can bring our heads under the machine and wonder: Do we hear Beethoven differently? Beghin draws us inside the hearing machine, where we feel as well as hear the essence of Beethoven’s rambunctious and irresistibly poetic musical vibrations. Inside the Hearing Machine invites us into the multisensory playground of a deaf composer for whom the machine was more than a hearing aid and who interacted with his instrument through much more than sound.

Classical Music

Although Beethoven's C Minor Symphony is probably the best-known piece of classical music ever written, it is veiled in myths and misunderstandings that are beginning to clear up thanks to research and performance efforts of musicians such as Jos van Immerseel.

Classical Music

Classical Music

We wonder whom we should admire the most: the composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who at the age of fifteen wrote such consummate, sparkling, and profound music, or the Hanover Piano Trio, which with violist Konstantin Sellheim has so immaculately recorded the young master's quartets on this GENUIN release. The four internationally sought-after artists demonstrate a great understanding of historically-informed performance practice, dedicating themselves with panache and at a high level to an oeuvre that deserves more attention - perfect timing for the Beethoven anniversary year!

To his audience back then, Beethoven must have been radical, stormy, piercing - overwhelming! Even the smallest loudspeaker jumps to the Aris Quartet, grabbing the listener and not letting go – pretty amazing for an ensemble whose members’ combined age is not yet 100! The multiple prizewinners of the 2016 International ARD Competition are among the absolute shooting stars of the quartet scene and, with their GENUIN album, they show why: cutting edge middle and late Beethoven – definitely worth listening to! The Aris Quartett was founded in 2009 on the initiative of Hubert Buchberger, Professor of Chamber Music at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. At the time, Anna Katharina Wildermuth (violin), Noemi Zipperling (violin), Caspar Vinzens (viola), and Lukas Sieber (cello), were still high school students, but already studying their respective instruments as junior students at the music university. Begun as an experiment, this meeting between the four young musicians proved to be a genuine stroke of luck. Zipperling writes: “It was truly a wonderful accident that he chose us in particular. Otherwise it probably never would have occurrec to us to play chamber music in this combination, since at the time we didn’t know each other at all.” Eight years later, the Aris Quartett is one of the most striking quartets of the younger generation.

Classical Music

Following up to her recording of piano concertos by J.N. Hummel and Beethoven, Austrian pianist Ingrid Marsoner is now presenting her interpretations of late piano sonatas by Beethoven. Marsoner's subtle yet vigorous play is opening with the Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101. The Rondo alla ingharese, quasi un capriccio, Op. 129 i sbetter known by its popular name ''Rage Over a Lost Penny'' and is as an early work like the ''lighter'' Sonata No. 24 in F sharp major, Op. 78, a welcoming intermezzo and an interesting contrast to the somewhat more profound late sonatas. As such the Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 symbolizes this world and the hereafter with its two very dissenting movements. The Austrian pianist Ingrid Marsoner is blessed with a musical sensitivity rarely to be found in the younger generation. Without any mawkishness, she is capable of moving listeners with Franz Schubert, accomplishing structural and atmospheric miracles with J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations, unfolding an amazing energy in musical competition with symphony orchestras and then, when she dips into the subtleties of a Mozart sonata or a modern impression, differentiating the finest nuances so fluently that the famous borderline between musical art and music ocne more completely loses its validity. She has received major musical inspiration from other eminent pianists such as Tatiana Nikolayeva, Paul Badura-Skoda and Alfred Brendel.