Beethoven: Favourite Piano Sonatas

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Binding: Audio CD EAN: 0028943873024 Format: Box set Label: Universal Classics Manufacturer: Universal Classics Number Of Discs: 2 Publisher: Universal Classics Release Date: 1994-01-18 Running Time: 151 Studio: Universal Classics
Related Items Mozart: Great Piano Concertos Beethoven: The Piano Concertos Chopin: Favourite Piano Works Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7 Late Piano Sonatas
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: The Perfect Recording Comment: Brendel sets the mark for other performers for seven of Beethoven's finest piano sonatas. Although brendel sticks to the notes, he still manages to leave his mark on the music. recommended ! Customer Rating: Summary: A truly great performance Comment: I love the music of Beethoven and especially his piano sonatas, symphonies and string quartets. Also I have listened to a LOT of different interpretations and can with certainty say that Brendel is among the absolute winners. And here I'm first of all thinking about the overall performance; it really has depth, musicality and transcendence - in other words; here is a man who understands Beethoven's music. This is not to say that everything is "perfect" - maybe sometimes one is missing a little clarity - a little more extra technical brilliance, but I believe that it doesn't really matter, because he really tells the story and that is the most important thing. Just listen to the famous 1'rst movement of the "Moonlight Sonata" - a piece that have been played to death, but in Brendel's hands it is a sheer joy - deep and profound, it cannot be any better. It is a shame that they haven't reissued he's complete performances from the 70's, with an updated mastering, because he's new rerecording of all the sonatas is definitely not as good as the ones from the 70's. You will not regret buying these selected sonatas (from the 70's) - it's just great. Customer Rating: Summary: Alfred Brendel - Master of Beethoven piano interpretation. Comment: The original recordings may be over thirty years old,but the combination of first-rate transfer to CD and Alfred Brendel's superb interpretation of Beethoven's piano sonatas,make this collection,in my opinion,the benchmark by which other recordings should be judged. The price is amazing value.For me,the Moonlight especially the challenging Presto was simply wonderful. Customer Rating: Summary: Without doubt the best set of Beethoven Sonatas I have heard Comment: Alfred Brendel is well known and well respected by the musical community as a great interpreter of Beethoven, but the recordings on this cycle are second to none. Alfred Brendel brings the discipline of perfect precision to the music in a way that I have never experienced before; regardless of speed or complexity, each note stands on its own and yet is perfectly part of the whole. One might expect there to be some reduction in expressiveness as a result of such amazing precision, but quite the reverse is true. The feeling that runs through the pieces is wholly genuine, and Brendel never allows technical ability to compromise artistic integrity. Consider the 3rd movement of the Waldstein sonata. The subtlety of the rendition is second to none, and one feels intimately attached to the music, as though Beethoven himself were playing through him. The shifts in velocity, tempo, colour and just the general feeling of the piece are simultaneously uplifting and captivating. Despite this wonder of expressiveness there is never any inappropriate enrichment or thickening of tone, a trap that so many great performers seem unable to escape. This is what it must have been like to hear Liszt perform Beethoven - Alfred Brendel is at the same time a master of precision and expression, one for whom technique and form are as one. More Reviews