Beethoven: Piano Concertos 2 & 4 / Fleisher, Szell

Regular price $17.99
Label
Sony Masterworks
Release Date
February 18, 2010
Format
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    Featuring
    • COMPOSER
      BEETHOVEN, LUDWIG VAN
    • ORCHESTRA / ENSEMBLE
      Cleveland Orchestra
    • PERFORMER
      Leon, George, Fleisher, Szell
    Product Details
    • RELEASE DATE
      February 18, 2010
    • UPC
      074644816525
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      SONY48165
    • LABEL
      Sony Masterworks
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
    Works
    1. Concerto for Piano no 2 in B flat major, Op. 19

      Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven

      Ensemble: Cleveland Orchestra

      Performer: Leon Fleisher (Piano)

      Conductor: George Szell

    2. Concerto for Piano no 4 in G major, Op. 58

      Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven

      Ensemble: Cleveland Orchestra

      Performer: Leon Fleisher (Piano)

      Conductor: George Szell


...This is vibrant and virile music making full of passionate sweep, arresting clarity, and genuine, chamber-like give and take between soloist and orchestra.

Like his teacher and mentor Artur Schnabel, Fleisher underlines Beethoven's harmonic tension by either distending or slightly speeding up certain runs and arpeggiated sequences, yet rarely at the expense of accuracy (the Fourth Concerto finale's rapid left-hand figurations are uncommonly clear), although he's not one to slave over making every long trill perfectly even and tapered. Under George Szell's eagle-eye, the Cleveland Orchestra members achieve staggering unanimity in regard to articulation and marcato phrasing, but with more heart and singing impulse than in Szell's relatively stiffer Beethoven accompaniments for Emil Gilels eight years later...

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com [reviewing the Fourth Concerto, Sony 78767]