The Most Important LvB Piano Sonata Cycle Comparison in the History of the World

[Atriod]

and I hear what Beethoven would have heard

Indeed!

To each his own and these reviews are highly personal and subjective after all.  I enjoy Levit, despite your suggestion that he hasn't anything 'new' to say about the Beethoven Sonatas.  It's his intensity that I appreciate;  his suggestion that this is 'fearless' music is what initially caught my attention.  My one criticism of Levit is his speed which is often of Argerich-inspired proportions in its rapid momentum.  A little less is more - with Levit and Argerich.

Add me to the pile of people that find Levit all around mediocre in the Beethoven Sonatas.

If fearlessness or intensity is what you desire Annie Fischer did it a hundred times better. There are some live recordings of Argerich playing some early sonatas, they are better than Levit, let's not drag her down.

[Conrad Veidt fan]

Indeed!

Add me to the pile of people that find Levit all around mediocre in the Beethoven Sonatas.

If fearlessness or intensity is what you desire Annie Fischer did it a hundred times better. There are some live recordings of Argerich playing some early sonatas, they are better than Levit, let's not drag her down.

Oh, OK.  I have long had issues with Argerich, to be honest.  But I'm still prepared to give Levit a go, despite his wacky comments about liking rap music!!

[Todd]

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[Mandryka]

"sublimated fire" -- where did you get that from? Aleistair Crowley?

Anyway -- Minsoo is a good new discovery for me, so thanks @Todd

[Todd]

"sublimated fire" -- where did you get that from? Aleistair Crowley?

I scribbled it on my own.

[Atriod]

Oh, OK.  I have long had issues with Argerich, to be honest.  But I'm still prepared to give Levit a go, despite his wacky comments about liking rap music!!

Cool, I like Igor Levit even more now.

[Todd]

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[(poco) Sforzando]

I don't have all these sets. I have Sohn, Fischer, both Kempffs, Heidsieck, and Gulda. Lucchesini and Pienaar on order. Also Levit, FFG, Goode, Kovacevich, and Nat. Some of the Schnabels. All kinds of singles including some Sherman, Casadesus, Badura-Skoda, Crawford, and Rosen. Might be fun to pick a sonata or two and do a parallel comparison of my own.

When I was younger and more active as a piano player (I'd never call myself a pianist), I would often read through almost all the sonatas except for those movements that defeated me completely like the finales of 101 and 106. Of the opp. 2's, #1 is the most gratifying to play, and #2 a real bitch with a lot of awkward stretches, broken octaves, and hand-crossings in the first movement especially. I would say #2 is technically much harder than #3, even though #3 is in a more concertante style. The first movement of 7 is very fatiguing, which may be why I'm not a big fan of the piece, but the slow movement is extremely gratifying to play and IMO the high point of the sonata.

[Hobby]

Really looking forward to seeing how this thread turns out. How will you handle the tensions between blind faith in saints against your scientific objectivity? Whatever route that takes we are in for an informative, insightful treat over the remainder of the month. Be interesting to see whether rankings have changed for op31.3 when you revisit. Yet another remarkable and challenging undertaking from you Todd!

[Brian]

I don't have all these sets. I have Sohn, Fisher, both Kempffs, Heidsieck, and Gulda. Lucchesini and Pienaar on order. Also Levit, FFG, Goode, Kovacevich, and Nat. Some of the Schnabels. All kinds of singles including some Sherman, Casadesus, Badura-Skoda, Crawford, and Rosen. Might be fun to pick a sonata or two and do a parallel comparison of my own.

When I was younger and more active as a piano player (I'd never call myself a pianist), I would often read through almost all the sonatas except for those movements that defeated me completely like the finales of 101 and 106. Of the opp. 2's, #1 is the most gratifying to play, and #2 a real bitch with a lot of awkward stretches, broken octaves, and hand-crossings in the first movement especially. I would say #2 is technically much harder than #3, even though #3 is in a more concertante style. The first movement of 7 is very fatiguing, which may be why I'm not a big fan of the piece, but the slow movement is extremely gratifying to play and IMO the high point of the sonata.

I'd enjoy reading these playing notes for the rest of the series as a little interruption and palate cleanser to the gravely important objective rankings. I listened to Op. 2 on Thursday (Lucchesini) but now already want to listen again.

As an aside, I have Lucchesini, Heidsieck, FFG, Barenboim (DG), Scherbakov, and Yusuke Kikuchi (download). And the incomplete sets of Gilels and Serkin. Just three first-tier contenders! For shame!   Not really looking to acquire more, but the Sohn description is exciting, and it doesn't take up any space in the house. Maybe the big Kempff Edition box will drop to a price that is impossible to resist, but my resistance is strong since I have all that music in several performances by others already. Apparently, the new box's mono Appassionata has 8 bars missing from the finale.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Apparently, the new box's mono Appassionata has 8 bars missing from the finale.

But which 8?

(As an aside, let me point out that Beethoven very specifically instructs the pianist to take the repeat of the second half of the finale. Why? I theorize that the new theme near the start of the development, in B-Flat minor, sounds like a subdominant of F minor when the section is played twice, and thus gives the usual subdominant balance to this sonata-form movement. No doubt because Beethoven specifically says to take the repeat, most pianists in my admittedly limited acquaintance do not.)

[Atriod]

Apparently, the new box's mono Appassionata has 8 bars missing from the finale.

That is present on every digital release of the mono cycle, only the LPs are correct. I verified that with my first pressing CD mono cycle box set when I received the Wilhelm Kempff Edition box.

Nothing is remastered on the Wilhelm Kempff Edition box, they just used the existing masters. The pre-war/acoustic recordings were licensed from APR and are digitally identical to APR's releases, except for the pre-war Beethoven Piano Concerto recordings where DG used their own older transfers instead of APR's.

But which 8?

Thanks to Hank Drake for pointing this out.
This is screwy.
There are eight missing bars in the 1951 mono recording of Beethoven's Sonata 23 "Appassionata".
It happens @4:47 in the third movement coda, where the sequence of galloping presto chords should be heard four times - twice in F minor, twice in A-flat major.
All four statements were played on DG's original LP (and on the 1964 stereo remake).
But on CD, the sequence is played only three times.
This is an editing error.
It dates to 1995 when DG transferred the mono performance to CD (Kempff died in 1991).

[Todd]

How will you handle the tensions between blind faith in saints against your scientific objectivity?

One must trust the science.

[(poco) Sforzando]

That is present on every digital release of the mono cycle, only the LPs are correct. I verified that with my first pressing CD mono cycle box set when I received the Wilhelm Kempff Edition box.

Nothing is remastered on the Wilhelm Kempff Edition box, they just used the existing masters. The pre-war/acoustic recordings were licensed from APR and are digitally identical to APR's releases, except for the pre-war Beethoven Piano Concerto recordings where DG used their own older transfers instead of APR's.

Thank you for saving me the effort of hunting this down. However, someone reasonably skilled in using a sound editing program could restore the missing first repeat of the A-flat major material (what you're calling the third statement), perhaps with a subtle splice of half a measure from the stereo edition since statement 3 ends on a quarter followed by an eighth note rest, vs. steady sixteenths at the end of statement 4.

But to his credit, Kempff takes the indicated repeat of the whole development-recap section, and ignores the spurious ritardando at measures 326-27, which both the Henle edition and Rosen believe was a misprint for a rinforzando. His tempo too, not a prestissimo perpetuum mobile but a true Allegro ma non troppo as written, follows Bülow's precept that the finale is usually played too quickly and the variations too slowly.

[Todd]

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[Jo498]

Op 10/1
Emil Gilels – The entire opening Allegro molto e con brio comes off as an Andante, albeit one with massive forte blasts.  At 11'45", the Adagio drags on, sapping the music of any vitality.  The Prestissimo sounds too slow and enervated, though the obvious skill in being able to stretch out some of the runs so evenly over a slow-ish tempo cannot be denied.  Overall, this is not a good recording. 

I eventually got used to most of the sometimes very slow Gilels performances but not this one. The first movement simply doesn't work at that pace and while I remember finding mvmt 2+3  as a bit more convinving than you do, this might be least successful performance in the whole DG Gilels Beethoven box.

Friedrich Gulda (Amadeo) – Super-quick, super-accurate ascending arpeggios kick off a high energy opening Allegro, with an attractive, contained Adagio to follow, and one that mixes slow and zippy perfectly.  The Prestissimo is turbocharged and fun.  High end.   

This is a very good one and a piece that fits Gulda's approach well although I probably prefer slightly more flexible versions not in complete cycles, such as Kocsis on a single Philips disc and Gelber in his Denon 2/3 cycle.

[Mandryka]

Good find @Todd, the Mejoueva - thanks. I've never heard any of her Beethoven before.

[Atriod]

I am just noticing that Backhaus stereo was not included, but Kempff mono and stereo DG cycles were. Was Backhaus stereo so far behind that it didn't meet the criteria? I know my own personal opinion of it versus the mono cycle but I am curious.

[Todd]

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[AnotherSpin]

"sublimated fire" -- where did you get that from? Aleistair Crowley?

Anyway -- Minsoo is a good new discovery for me, so thanks @Todd

What are your impressions of Minsoo Sohn? He is being praised in this thread, and I have re-listened to him again a couple of times. Each time there is a clear association with Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Nightingale.