Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #27)

Please note - that's the whole ballet, not merely the (much briefer) suite.

(I'm referring to the Dorati recording).

 

Damn! Small world.

 

Yeah, actually that is what I was looking for. Like I said I know absolutely nothing about classical music.

 

You've come to the right place. Feel free to post any other recommendations you need.

 

That's a good one, liked because of the dance-like tempos. For a higher charged version this is quite good:

 

I like the Previn on EMI, I got the Previn EMI Tchaikovsky Ballet Budget Box (say that three times fast!) and I enjoy it.

 

So the Kempff box set came in the mail. Instead of being in "Very Good" condition, it was "Like New," with the exception of one little black pin dot you can see on both sides of the first CD. But it plays on all my players, and it ripped perfectly. The CDs and the packaging honestly look as if I'm the first person who ever played them. I notice a weird smell when I open the cases, probably the odor of printing chemicals and laminates commingling with plastic for the last 25 years. It's like nothing I can identify.

So I'm happy. I haven't had time to listen to anything but disc #1, but I imagine I'll like it, now that I'm more acclimated to the music. I don't know why I didn't like Beethoven's Piano Sonatas 25 years ago. Oh, well. Something for now.

 

His op 101, A major is great, particularly in the stereo set. One of the all-time great performances of my favorite piece of Beethoven.

 

A.K.A. No. 28. I'll put that at the top of the list.

 

Then I suggest his Op. 110, a great performance of the greatest piano sonata ever written.

 

And #31 will come next (I have a mental block with op. numbers; don't know why). Do most people remember opus numbers, not just in Beethoven, but in general? I have the hardest time remembering Mozart's K. numbers, Schubert's D. numbers, and now Beethoven's opus numbers. Mahler had the right idea.

 

the west is the best—Get here and we'll do the rest

Annie Fischer's performance of the 31st sonata is also extraordinary.

I guess the op. 101 sonata strikes my fancy because it is so experimental—a fragment from a slow first movement abruptly followed by a loud march/scherzo, then contrasted with a very dry canon, back to the march, an introduction of a slow movement followed by a fake fugue followed by a real fugue. And that real fugue pre-echos both the Hammerklavier* and Charles Ives in its deliberate piling on of polytonal dissonance. It's one of those pieces I first read and managed to memorize. I couldn't, alas, play it on the piano but I can still play it back in my head. As Glenn Gould can tell you, that's the very best way to hear great music. And the 28th sonata is the first of the "Late Period Pieces", the beginning of an abrupt shift in the composer's musical style. It reminds me of the latest of the Late Period pieces—the last of the Op. 126 bagatelles, Beethoven's real last word for the piano, where a door nosily opens up to a new and extraordinary musical view, then just as abruptly slams shut. We get only one view of the Beethoven of op. 101, there's nothing else by him quite so unbuttoned.

Thus favoritism.

The op 110 is strange in similar way. But the way most pianists rush the final fugue really irritates me. Kempff is more reasonable than most and does a wonderful job of making the 31st. sonata work as a whole, Fischer simply blazes away.

I don't know if I could render a judgement of Apollo here—particularly with all the nonsense I have had with Eris°—but the final sonata of Beethoven's, the C minor # 32, sure sounds final. Annie Fischer's performance really blew me away. I'm convinced me that the seeming awkward phrasing you hear in Artur Schnabel's very convincing performance of Beethoven's last sonata must be in the score and Annie Fischer gets the same, contorted, phrasing as Schnabel. The only other performers I've heard that got close were Richter [in that Brilliant Green Box] and Bruce Hungerford for Vanguard records. Nobody else I've heard has come close, they're too smooth, too even, too normal.

*The "Other" Hammerklavier—both the 28th and 29th were "Hammerklavier" sonatas as Beethoven was feeling a bit nationalist at the time or was honked off at the Italians, I forget.

°for more info consult either your pineal gland or:

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/

 

For whatever reason, I find it easier to remember Opus numbers for Beethoven sonatas. Probably because I am so familiar with those works. Same with Schubert, but Mozart's I have to look up, as I am not as familiar with them.

 

Indeed. Serkin's (unauthorized) 1960 Op. 110 is the best I have heard and for some strange reason, he didn't want it released. They only did so after he died.

Have you heard Yudina's Op. 111?

 

If not, it's up on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDfbjXVawNY

 

Authorized from beyond the Grave !

Always had a problem with Papa Serkin's tone. My understanding was that he wasn't exactly phonogenic. I picked up his Late Beethoven sonata recordings that were issued in the seventies as they came out, was disappointed by them all. But of course I heard his recordings from the 78 era with the Busch brothers and other famous recordings from the pre-stereo era. I've heard good things about those "unauthorized" issues of Beethoven sonatas from other sources as well, have a bit more investigating to do.

Guess I need to!

 

Ok guys, whom do we like for Bruckner's symphonies?

 

Celibidache's EMI Set.

 

I was almost 100% certain you'd say that.

on edit: Looks like I might need a second mortgage for these...

 

It aint cheap, but it's so worth it. See if you can sample one of his recordings at your library or on Spotify. If you like/love one, you love them all. People tend to love him and defend him until the end of the earth, or cast stones instead.