BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106 “Hammerklavier”; Piano Sonata in C Major, Op. 2/3 – Marc André-Hamelin, piano – Hyperion CDA68456 (68:59) (7/26/24) [Distr. by PIAS] *****:
Canadian piano virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin (b. 1961) has gleaned an impressive reputation for both an astonishing technical arsenal and a penetrating urgency in works of often dauting difficulty. He now explores (rec. 18-20 September 2023) two divergent sonatas of Beethoven, each a challenge digitally and intellectually, given Beethoven’s own penchant for contrasting conjunct and disjunct melodic groups. In the “Hammerklavier” Sonata of 1817-1818, what immediately strikes us, the broad dynamic range, derives from Beethoven’s having combined aspects of two distinct keyboards, Viennese and British, that utilize the full complement of tones over six-and-one-half octaves. The tonal palette exploits every key signature except E major; and, to add to Beethoven’s demand for exactness of rhythm, he provides metronome marks that attest to his require6ment for speed. This reviewer’s models of execution for this often-grueling work have been classic readings by Louis Kentner and Egon Petri.
The ubiquity of rising and falling thirds in the first movement Allegro obviously so impressed Johannes Brahms that the formula became an adapted trade mark in his own canon. Hamelin imbues the music – from the opening fanfare – with a sense of optimistic energy, as the modalities between B-flat and G major seem to compete for dominance. Octave figures and traveling trills imbue the progression, along with sudden pauses, with a startling sense of evolving. labyrinthine drama, no less marked by periods of strict counterpoint. The rapid speed from Hamelin, only a mite off from Beethoven’s written requirements, for the sake of textural clarity, achieves a slick momentum, quite kaleidoscopic in effect. The percussive elements, balanced by ringing arpeggios and scalar passages, have their own sense of inevitability, consistently, intricately self-referential until the resolution in G-flat major.
The ensuing Scherzo in B-flat major provides, in ternary form, an affective relief from the heightened rigors of movement one, a humor-laden jaunt that plays with the modalities of B-flat. The pattern of rising and falling thirds proves no less potent. The music of the Trio echoes the theme in Beethoven’s own Eroica Symphony, possessing at first a misty gravitas and then a briefly furious 2/4 Presto section. Hamelin articulates the sometimes frantic chiaroscuro of the playful movement with flippant dexterity.
The third movement Adagio sostenuto (F# minor) is set in 6/8 time, but it bears little relation to dance music; rather, it preserves a noble, tragic carriage, what Wilhelm von Lenz characterized as “a mausoleum of collective sorrow.” The music tentatively moves – after successive falling thirds – through G to D major, the main theme in the bass. What beguiles us in this performance lies in the apparent stasis Hamelin establishes in the course passing dissonances and sudden dynamic interjections. Hamelin sustains the internalized passion for almost 19 minutes, where Wilhelm Kempff holds forth for 16 minutes. The external quantification proves irrelevant: the fervor and purity of the line reigns supreme.
The last movement Largo – Allegro- Allegro risoluto seems to confront J.S. Bach with freshly minted ideas about the subjectivity of fugal procedure. After an uncanny, free introduction, the three-voice fugue Beethoven invents will undergo any number of variations in presentation, including inversion, retrogression, augmentation and diminution, and octave displacement. Hamelin offers the fugal tune, Allegro, in the manner of an étude or toccata, deftly confronting itself with an array of guises, often intricately dense in texture. The music’s complexity and economy of means seem to beckon Ferruccio Busoni at every turn, with forward looking calls to Schumann, Brahms, and even Webern. The one new theme that enters soon must yield to having been absorbed into the maelstrom, and the coda sounds the initial theme unisono, but graduated one degree higher, until a resounding last chord.
Whether Hamelin wishes the 1795 Sonata in C major, Op. 2/3 to serve as a foil for the Hammerklavier or as a study in Beethoven’s stylistic evolution, the contrast could hardly be greater. The first movement Allegro con brio enjoys an operatic, fustian bombastic power, likely conceived in the spirit of its dedicatee, Haydn. Playful shifts of register, along with witty trills, mark the thematic development, landing resolutely at cadences. The nature of the scalar and cadenza-like passages prepare for the canny filigree of the B-flat Concerto, Op. 19, really Beethoven’s first published exercise in the large form.
Beethoven utilizes aspects of his first movement to inform the melodic line of E major Adagio movement. The careful attention Hamelin devotes to the melodic curve and its pointed bass line invest into the aether the burgeoning Romanticism of the times, especially embodied in C.P.E. Bach. The color of the middle section, in the relative minor, provides a haunted landscape that will become at times stentorian in nature. The ensuing Scherzo: Allegro indulges in manic humor, the first four notes ticklishly obsessive. Do we feel a premonition of the Fifth Symphony? The middle section, in A minor, allows Hamelin to showcase his swelling arpeggios, again over the ubiquitous rhythmic tattoo. Like Haydn, Beethoven combines rondo and sonata form for his finale, a sprightly Allegro assai. The turn to F major maintains the upbeat, fertile character of the occasion, marked by quick injections of rhythmic verve. The step-wise motion soon admits watery trills into the mix, and the whole advances with a confident command of the idiom, from composer and interpreter, both.
—Gary Lemco
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From Hyperion, Marc-André Hamelin performing two Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Hammerklavier. Classical Music Review by Gary Lemco.
