Les Adieux Archive
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonatas Nos. 3, 14, 23, 26, 32; Variations on an Original Theme – Evgeny Kissin, piano – DGG
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata in C Major, Op. 2, No. 3; 32 Variations on an Original Theme in c minor, WoO 80; Piano Sonata No. 14 in c-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 “Moonlight”; Piano Sonata No. 23 in f minor, Op. 57 “Appassionata”; Piano Sonata No. 26 in E-flat Major, Op. 81a “Les Adieux”; Piano Sonata No. 32 in c minor, Op. 111 – Evgeny Kissin, piano – DGG 479 7581 (2 CDs) 55:40; 73:14 (9/8/17) [Distr. by Universal] *****: Evgeny’s Kissin’s Beethoven exploration, 2006-2016, reveals a mature thinker in music with ideas of his own. Russian virtuoso Evgeny Kissin (b. 1971) has assembled performances of Beethoven he deems significant in his artistic development, culled from various sources, 2006-2016. Indeed, the musicality revealed in these performances bespeaks a thoughtful, matured artist, for whom restraint and tasteful execution has become an integral part of a technical arsenal that had already achieved bravura status. Kissin opens from Seoul, 2006, with the 1795 Sonata in C Major, a clear, often bold, statement of the composer’s virtuosic ambitions, even as it experiments with a narrow melodic tessitura, based on conjunct intervals. The placement of the second subject in g minor must have raised eyebrows […]
Jascha Spivakovsky, Vol 3 = BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonatas – Pristine Audio
Jascha Spivakovsky: Bach to Bloch, Volume III = BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 8 in c minor, Op. 13 “Pathetique”; Piano Sonata No. 14 in c-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 “Moonlight”; Piano Sonata No. 26 in E-flat Major, Op. 81a “Les Adieux”; Piano Sonata No. 32 in c minor, Op. 111 – Pristine Audio PAKM 070, 76:02 [www.pristineclassical.com] ****: Pristine and Andrew Rose continue to nurture the Jascha Spivakovsky legend with four Beethoven sonatas. The third installment of Pristine’s resuscitation of the Jascha Spivakovsky (1896-1970) legend now extends to four Beethoven sonatas, recorded 1955-1967, to supplement the Waldstein Sonata in Volume I. For a recent radio tribute to Spivakovsky over KZSU-FM, Stanford—sharing the microphone with commentator Mark Ainley—I chose the 1957 broadcast performance of the Les Adieux Sonata, specifically conceived by Beethoven as a tribute to Archduke Rudolf. This rendition by Spivakovsky, pointedly virile, enjoys such an immediacy of effect – especially in dynamic contrasts – that it becomes a template of the Spivakovsky approach. The feelings of emotional oppression, in the opening Adagio and in the haunted Andante espressivo, proceed with a sustained gravity and pedaled continuity, only to dissipate in a rush of reconciliation at the Vivacissimo, as […]
Mordecai Shehori plays BEETHOVEN, Vol. 2 = Cembal d’amour
More elegantly “musical” Beethoven from Mordecai Shehori, who eschews mere bravura for intelligence and authenticity of expression.
MOZART: Piano Sonata in C Major; Piano Sonata in F Major; BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 26 in E-flat Major “Les Adieux”; Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp Minor “Moonlight”; Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor – Wilhelm Backhaus, p. – Testament
Wilhelm Backhaus, aged seventy-six, returns to England for concerts at the BBC, 1960-1961, an artist undiminished by age or keyboard technique and in thorough command of his artistic milieu.
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonatas, Vol. I = Sonata No. 5; Sonata No. 11; Sonata No. 12 “Funeral March”; Sonata No. 26 “Les Adieux” – Jonathan Biss – Onyx
These sonatas bear the hallmark of a young lion who feels ready to proffer his mane and demand a goodly territory.