# Beethoven Piano Sonatas - Cycles completed in the past decade



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I was hoping to get some discussion going about some more current cycles completed in the past decade. Have you listened to any of these I've listed, or any others we should know about? Are any of them worth owning in your opinion?

Igor Levit
Bavouzet 
Martin Rasch
Braitigam
Louis Lortie
Michael Korstick
Mari Kodama
Idil Biret
Barenboim's live cycle


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

I have heard most of the Kodama cycle and liked it, but did not purchase. I thought she plays on the beautiful and musical side of the spectrum.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Blimey! The very well received Paul Lewis cycle is already more than a decade old? Where did those years go?????


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

Ronald Brautigam's cycle is worth owning because he plays a period piano (made by Paul McNulty), and that can be illuminating in itself. For example, the fugal movement in the Hammerclavier Sonata movement doesn't become a total mess in Brautigam's hands, as it often does on a more unwieldy and overly resonant modern grand piano.

Hammerklavier Sonata, IV Largo - Fuga:





The opening of the sonata also works better according to Beethoven's metronome marking when played on a period piano. Again, pianists playing modern grands usually have difficulties here, & most don't bother to follow Beethoven's metronome mark for the opening of the movement. Wilhelm Kempff, for example, claimed that Beethoven didn't know what he was asking for due to his deafness, which is nonsense. Beethoven did know what he asking for, it's just that Kempff either couldn't play it or make sense of it. While other pianists have conveniently claimed that Beethoven's metronome must have been broken...

(To gain greater insight into this question, I'd recommend that people have a listen to Andras Schiff's excellent lecture on the Hammerclavier Sonata--as Schiff claims, & I believe rightly so, that "it's wrong to try to be more clever than the composer...": 



.)

Michael Korstick's cycle is also well worth hearing; however, I'm only half way through it myself, presently, since I've been collecting the cycle piecemeal on the individual hybrid SACDs, rather than buying the whole CD box set. So it's too soon for me to claim that Korstick's cycle is the best cycle of the past decade or one of the best digital era cycles (although, with the exception of Emil Gilels & Bruno Leonardo Gelber's not quite complete cycles for DG & Denon, respectively, and Sviatoslav Richter's extensive, but incomplete survey, I'm leaning in that direction). Like Brautigam, Korstick plays the Hammerclavier Piano Sonata exceptionally well--which is a good measuring stick for any cycle I think. His fugal movement is about as cleanly played as it can be on a modern grand piano, while following Beethoven's metronome marking. & I'd say remarkably so. The adagio movement is also unusually intimate & deeply felt in Korstick's hands, and here the movement becomes something special. Schiff perceptively speaks of the first part of the adagio as being in a "speaking mood", & I agree, and see it as an utterance coming from deep within Beethoven's soul or spirit or psyche. Here is the man speaking directly to us, telling us who he was and what he felt in his heart, via music of the most inimitable beauty.

Korstick:
Hammerklavier Sonata: 



Piano Sonatas nos. 30 & 31: 




By the way, Korstick's special dedication to Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas goes back to at least his days at the Juilliard School, where his fellow students nicknamed him "Dr. Beethoven", due to his obsession with these scores--which is a good thing if a pianist plans to record all 32 Piano Sonatas.

However, I've not heard the other cycles on your list--with the exception of Igor Levit's recording of the Late Piano Sonatas nos. 28-32, which I liked. Interestingly, Levit plays the late sonatas with an almost Baroque touch and sensibility, which I found offered some valuable insights, especially in the denser, more complex passages.

Have you considered Andras Schiff's cycle on ECM? Personally, I had a mixed reaction to it, which surprised me, since I thought his lectures on all 32 Sonatas were very illuminating & engaging.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Josquin13 said:


> Have you considered Andras Schiff's cycle on ECM? Personally, I had a mixed reaction to it, which surprised me, since I thought his lectures on all 32 Sonatas were very illuminating & engaging.


I thought that his lectures were more interesting than his playing on the recordings.

I agree about both Korstick and Brautigam. I haven't heard the others on the OP list, other than bits of the Barenboim and Lortie sets.

Another recent recording worth considering is Stewart Goodyear's:


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## Guest (Dec 10, 2019)

Josquin13 said:


> Ronald Brautigam's cycle is worth owning because he plays a period piano (made by Paul McNulty), and that can be illuminating in itself. For example, the fugal movement in the Hammerclavier Sonata movement doesn't become a total mess in Brautigam's hands, as it often does on a more unwieldy and overly resonant modern grand piano.
> 
> Hammerklavier Sonata, IV Largo - Fuga:
> 
> ...


I've never know the "Hammerklavier" to become a 'mess' in the hands of anybody but amateurs, like myself. Your comments about Kempff are dead wrong; he knew exactly what he was talking about. Undoubtedly Beethoven would have done quite a few things differently had he been able to hear them!! How many composers from the past have revised their work after hearing them? Very many, including Brahms and Haydn himself!!


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

Christabel writes, "I've never know the "Hammerklavier" to become a 'mess' in the hands of anybody but amateurs, like myself. Your comments about Kempff are dead wrong; he knew exactly what he was talking about."

Did you listen to Andras Schiff's lecture on the Hammerklavier?: if not, here's the link again: 



. I don't think Schiff, for one, would agree with you about Kempff's interpretation of Hammerklavier score, as he makes a number of perceptive, insightful points about what Beethoven is actually asking for in this sonata that go against the way Kempff plays it. I don't agree with you, either, that Kempff knew what he was talking about and Beethoven didn't, in regards to the difficult metronome markings that the composer left for this sonata (particularly for the opening movement).

Here is what Kempff said about the 1st movement,

"The erroneous metronome marking can easily lead to this regal movement being robbed of its radiant majesty." ... "Beethoven was completely deaf by the time he wrote this work and had lost touch with the world of actual sound."

I think that's nonsense.

In addition, Beethoven didn't compose the fugal movement for a modern grand piano. As I wrote above, it's a more unwieldy and resonant instrument than the type of piano or pianos that Beethoven wrote for. Those differences are readily apparent if you listen to Brautigam play the complex fugue on a period piano. I wasn't talking about a pianist's technique. I agree with you that there are many professional pianists out there that can technically play the fugal movement--albeit some more cleanly than others. What can make it sound like a mess is the greater resonance of a modern grand, i.e., the instrument itself, and its greater unwieldiness, especially in relation to a period piano. Though, some pianists manage to overcome this difficulty better than others.

As for Kempff, his piano technique was better on his earliest recordings. If you've heard his pre-war 78 RPM Beethoven recordings on APR, recorded between 1925-1936, it becomes evident in some of the most difficult passages. In order to hear this, you have to directly compare them to his DG recordings, especially the later stereo ones. (I'm not the first person to express a preference for Kempff's mono recordings over his later stereo era recordings.) Kempff's recordings of the 5 Piano Concertos also bear this out, as his mono cycle with conductor Paul van Kampen is better played than his later stereo set, technically, and in my opinion, artistically, too. (It's one of my favorite cycles.)

Here's a link to Kempff's APR recordings, if you don't know them: 




& his stereo DG recordings: 




However, that doesn't mean that I'm putting Kempff down as a Beethoven pianist. He was a great Beethoven pianist. My point was simply that his ideas about the Hammerklavier were wrongheaded in relation to the metronome markings that Beethoven left us. If you don't agree, and like Kempff, believe that the deaf Beethoven didn't know what he asking for, that's fine. We disagree.

As further support for my position, here's a pianist--Beveridge Webster--that takes Beethoven at his word in the Hammerklavier by following the metronome markings that Kempff calls "erroneous":


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Thanks for your commentary, Josquin. I'm not much of a Schiff fan, but the Korstick cycle is one I am more interested in exploring.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Josquin13 said:


> Christabel writes, "I've never know the "Hammerklavier" to become a 'mess' in the hands of anybody but amateurs, like myself. Your comments about Kempff are dead wrong; he knew exactly what he was talking about."
> 
> Did you listen to Andras Schiff's lecture on the Hammerklavier?: if not, here's the link again:
> 
> ...


Does Schiff follow Beethoven's metronome markings throughout the whole first movement?


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

Mandryka asks, "Does Schiff follow Beethoven's metronome markings throughout the whole first movement?"

Well that's just it. He doesn't. But Schiff makes all the right points in his lecture. If a pianist follows Beethoven's metronome mark for the opening movement, it should come in at around 8:50 or so (with repeats taken). Schiff brings it in at around 11:00, if I remember right.

Most tellingly, according to Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt didn't alter Beethoven's metronome markings when he played the Hammerclavier:

"Liszt has explained the work in such a way that if the composer himself had returned from the grave, joy and pride would have swept over him. Not a note was left out, not one added (I followed the performance with the sheet music), not one alteration was made in the tempo that was not indicated in the text (….) It was the ideal performance of a work with the reputation of being unperformable. Liszt, in bringing back a work that was previously not understood has shown that he is a pianist of the future. Honor to him!"

(The above translation is taken from the following article on early performances of the Hammerklavier: https://www.ripm.org/cnc/?p=592, which may be of interest.)

Neither did Ferruccio Busoni, by report (who was widely considered one of the great pianists of his era).

Artur Schnabel also famously tried, & plays the movement in the right spirit, but had trouble handling its technical difficulties: 




Beveridge Webster may actually be slightly faster than Beethoven's mark at 8:43 (see the link in my above post).

Of course, I'm not claiming that every pianist must bring the movement in at 8:50 (& I don't think Beethoven was either), yet I don't think pianists should play the movement slowly, either. That's not the spirit of the opening--as it's more dynamic than that--which was one of Schiff's chief points in his lecture.

To my mind, Michael Korstick makes a good case for taking the suggestion of Beethoven's metronome marking & allowing it to inspire his interpretation, hence bringing the movement in at 9:08 (though he takes the adagio quite slowly): 




In comparison to these pianists, Kempff takes a slower tempo, & offers a different interpretation (his 8:51 is achieved by not taking any repeats): 



, which isn't close to what Beethoven asks for in his metronome mark, indeed it sounds too relaxed & leisurely.

In my view, Beethoven wanted to greatly challenge pianists in this sonata, and I believe he succeeded.

(However, that doesn't mean that I intend to throw out my Hammerklavier recordings by Emil Gilels, Rudolf Serkin, Solomon, Annie Fischer, & Sviatoslav Richter, as I don't. I'd even argue that there are great Hammerklavier recordings from pianists that don't pay strict attention to the composer's metronome markings (such as Solomon & Richter), but I don't see Kempff's 3rd DG stereo recording as one of those recordings.)

Of related interest, here's what Alfred Brendel had to say on the subject, when he was interviewed for a New York Times in an article written by Nicholas Kenyon in 1983:

"Does he [Brendel] then believe Beethoven's controversial metronome marks? ''No,'' he says. ''More and more people are writing now that Beethoven's marks are right, and that the first movement of the Hammerklavier should be at 138 and this is possible. Now if you have tried to play the piece you know that this is not possible. Anyone can see that is nonsense. If you can approach 120 you are quite lucky, and anyway at that speed the music retains enough impact to sound very fast. I simply cannot imagine the Adagio played as fast as Beethoven indicates, and I am by no means the slowest Adagio player! Busoni did keep to the marking and scolded everyone who didn't. I wonder what he made of it? But I am not of the Schnabel feeling that every slow movement ought to be played as slow as earthly possible; I think that impoverishes the music, and I want to keep it flowing.''


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I'm afraid I don't like op 106/1 very much, whoever's playing it. So I won't make any more points about this sonata.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> I'm afraid I don't like op 106/1 very much, whoever's playing it. So I won't make any more points about this sonata.


I thought I was the only one with that affection.


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