Pathetique – Emily's Music Dump

April 26, 2013June 23, 2021

Beethoven – Piano Sonatas – Opus 106 and Opus 111

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Piano Sonata in B Flat Major, Opus 106 – “Hammerklavier”

Edith Vogel, piano

Recorded in 1994 (BBC Music Magazine)

ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:

Other than sounding like it was recorded in a high school gymnasium (lots of echo), when you cut through the sound clutter, the performance is excellent.

ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by Misha Donat):

Beethoven published his first three sonatas, Opus 2 (1-3) in 1796, when he was in his mid-20s, and dedicated them to his former teacher Haydn.

Two decades and two dozen piano sonatas later, he began work on what was to be his final group of five sonatas. For some time he had been attempting to find German equivalents for the traditional Italian musical forms; and in 1817, he instructed his publisher to use the term “Hammerklavier” instead of “pianoforte” for all his future piano works.

His instruction was, however, unambiguously carried out only in the case of Opus 106 – the second of his late sonatas. As a grand sonata in four distinct movements, the Hammerklavier stands apart from its companions. It is a work of unprecedented scope, with the broadest slow movement Beethoven ever wrote for the piano, and a finale consisting of a colossal fugue – which makes huge demand on performer and listener alike.

Like the Sonata Opus 111, the Hammerklavier was dedicated to Beethoven’s staunchest patron, Archduke Rudolph of Austria, and its fanfare-like opening phrase was designed to fit the words, “Vivat, vivat Rudolphus!”

Opus 111 was Beethoven’s last sonata, and also his final work in his characteristically dramatic key of C minor. This time there are only two movements; the first begins with an intense slow introduction, out of which the Allegro explodes with force.

The finale is a set of variations on a serene ‘Arietta.’ The variations gradually increase in intricacy until they reach a long-sustained trill, and the sonata comes to a close in an atmosphere of profound calm.

TRACK LISTING:

1-4: Piano Sonata in B flat Major, Opus 106 – “Hammerklavier”
5-6: Piano Sonata in C minor, Opus 111

FINAL THOUGHT:

I used to love with my new copy of BBC Magazine would come in the mid-1990s with the CD glued to the cover. The glue would tear the cover of the magazine off until they decided (after the first few issues and probably thousands of complaints) to put the CD in plastic. The performances were always hit or miss but I have a nice nostalgia for all those discs in my collection.

Emily Sachs – President – Manka Music Group (A division of Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company)

April 24, 2013June 23, 2021

Beethoven – Sonatas for Violin and Piano – No 5 Spring and No 9 Kreutzer

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Sonata No. 5 for Violin and Piano in F Major, Opus 24, “Spring”

Sonata No. 9 for Violin and Piano in A Major, Opus 47, “Kreutzer”

Zino Francescatti, Violin; Robert Casadesus, Piano

Recorded in France (Sonata No. 5, 1961 – Sonata No. 9, 1958) (CBS Records)

ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:

And the hits just keep on coming – ah, nice.

ORIGINAL LINER NOTES:

No liner notes on this budget disc but it’s such a pleasant recording you really don’t need to know anything about it – just sit back, get a glass of wine and relax.

TRACK LISTING:

1-4: Sonata No. 5 in F Major for Violin and Piano, Opus 24 – “Spring”
5-7: Sonata No. 9 in A Major for Violin and Piano, Opus 47 – “Kreutzer”

FINAL THOUGHT:

The easiest review I’ve had to do thus far. I like it. Whenever I hear this recording, I can’t help but think of the scene in “Love & Death” where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton play the opening strains of the Spring Sonata.

Emily Sachs – President – Manka Music Group (A division of Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company)

April 19, 2013June 23, 2021

Beethoven – Piano Sonatas – “Pathetique” – “Moonlight” – “Pastoral”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Opus 13 – “Pathetique”

Piano Sonata No. 14 in C Sharp Minor, Opus 27 No. 2 – “Moonlight”

Piano Sonata No. 15 in D Major, Opus 28 – “Pastorale”

Piano Sonata No. 24 in F Sharp Major, Opus 78

ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:

If you want the hits, you’ve got the hits – this is one classic recording – a great performance by Wilhelm Kempff on Piano.

ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by Joan Chissell):

“L’adolsecent, l’homme, le dieu” was LIszt’s description of Beethoven’s successive stages of development so patent in the 32 piano sonatas completed between 1795 and 1822, a series as remarkable for the composer’s constant quest for variety of pattern within the traditional sonata mold as his response to the challenge of the piano itself in crucial days of the instrument’s development in strength, compass and colour.

The Grande Sonate Pathetique, as its publisher first issued it, dates from 1798-99. Never before had Beethoven extracted more drama from C minor, always his most faithful key, than in the turbulent opening movement starting with an imposing Grave introduction twice recalled in the course of the sonata-form argument (like Clementi and Dussek he had already tried out a similar device in a sonata written at eleven).

It is no surprise to learn from letters that already in the later 1790s he was secretly tormented by early symptoms of deafness. Assuagement comes in the idyllic, recurrent song melody of the Adagio cantabile in A flat, through tension mounts in two contrasting episodes. The finale is an urgent sonata-rondo back in the home key of C minor.

Composed in 1801, during an ill-starred romance with its youthful dedicatee, the Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, the C sharp minor Sonata testifies to Beethoven’s tireless pursuit of formal adventure: like its predecessor in E flat it carries the subtitle “quasi una fantasia.”

His boldest stroke was in opening with an Adagio sosenuto, music sufficiently hypnotic in its calm to remind the poet-critic Rellstab of moonlight on Lake Lucerne – hence the nickname apprended after Beethoven’s death.

For the Allegretto, a grecious old-style minuet and trio following without sharp break. Beethoven slips enharmonically into D flat major. The finale in the home key is a passionately disturbed Presto agitato in sonata form.

Following hard on the heels of the “Moonlight” in the same year of 1801, the D major Sonata reverts to a traditional four-movement sequence. The nickname “Pastoral” came from the publisher Cranz. But the music exudes enough of the relaxation and simple joy Beethoven always found in the country (openly confessed in the Sixth Symphony) to make it easy to believe Czerny’s contention that the sonata was one of the composer’s favorites.

Repeated low Ds, like a rustic drone, support the opening tune of the sonata-form Allegro. The lilting main theme of the sonata-rondo finale, again with a drone-like accompaniment, is still more redolent of the village green.

Though the D minor-major Andante, with its regular, march-like tread, is tinged with regret, the Scherzo is one of the composer’s most playful.

Beethoven was in his 40th year when composing the F sharp major Sonata in 1809, after four years away from the genre: in total contrast to its story F minor predecessor, the “Appassionata,” this gracious work in only two movements was dedicated to the Countess Therese von Brunsvik, who though no longer accepted as his legendary “immortal beloved,” was one of the few closest to his heart whose character approached his own exalted ideals of womanhood.

With the unpredictability of genius Beethoven rejects heart-searching, after only the briefest Adagio cantabile introduction, to write a radiantly lyrical Allegro non troppo in concisely expressed sonata form. In the scherzando-like concluding Allegro vivace, also in (for him) the unusual key of F sharp major, he springs constant surprises of tonality, register and dynamics.

TRACK LISTING:

1-3: Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Opus 13 – “Pathetique”
4-6: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp Minor, Opus 27 No. 2 – “Moonlight”
7-10: Piano Sonata No. 15 in D Major, Opus 28 – “Pastorale”
11-12: Piano Sonata No. 24 in F sharp Major, Opus 78

FINAL THOUGHT:

Like a warm blanket or a favorite pair of shoes, these sonatas will never let you down. A great recording.

Emily Sachs – President – Manka Music Group (A division of Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company)