Beethoven Piano Your resource for the piano music of Ludwig van Beethoven

asin: B0002W3EDG binding: Audio CD list price: $16.99 USD amazon price: $26.88 USD

Here's an inspired appendage to the Aimard-Harnoncourt set of the Beethoven Piano Concertos. When new, the Triple Concerto, combining three solo instruments with orchestra, was considered a bold new type of concerto. That's how it's played here. The solo trio blends nicely with the orchestra, giving the work a chamber music dimension. Once past the slow introduction, Harnoncourt conducts a vigorous, almost rhapsodic performance, with great forward momentum. But the honors go to the outstanding soloists. Aimard etches the piano line with exceptional clarity, Hagen, the cellist of the Hagen Quartet, plays with gorgeous tone, while violinist Zehetmair, who also leads a quartet bearing his name, almost steals the show through his agile playing and phrasing that cuts to the heart of the music. I know of no better performance of this work. The Choral Fantasy too comes off as more than a weird combination of a solo piano fantasia and a choral sketch for the last movement of the Ninth Symphony. And pianist and orchestra play the daylights out of the quirky Rondo in B-flat major. --Dan Davis

asin: B0000041K9 binding: Audio CD list price: $23.98 USD amazon price: $27.97 USD

Each of these performances has its own profile. The orchestra plays incisively in the First Concerto, but Ashkenazy's plush lyricism doesn't make a good match either with the orchestra or with the music, and he makes one weird ritard in the first movement. The Second Concerto is uneventful, rather bland and pleasant. The Third Concerto seems to be the best performance of the lot, with dramatic playing by soloist and orchestra, but it's sabotaged by blurry recorded sound, the only serious problem with sound quality in the entire set. The Fourth Concerto is enlivened, at least intellectually, by Solti's approach, constantly revealing interesting unfamiliar details in the orchestral score. Ashkenazy's detachment makes this a frosty but fascinating experience. The "Emperor" is a good routine performance, nothing special. The Bagatelles aren't much of a bonus, since they're rather dully played. (Why not the "Choral" Fantasy?) There's nothing actively bad about this set, and it's reasonably priced. But Beethoven deserves better, and gets it from many performers, including the fascinating Uchida-Sanderling collaborations. --Leslie Gerber

asin: B000003LIU binding: Audio CD list price: $16.98 USD amazon price: $16.98

The Concerto is one of the recordings that made Ivan Moravec's reputation as a great pianist. It's just as impressive-sounding today. Moravec and the excellent Martin Turnovsky seem to have given this great music an intense reexamination. They play it with attention to every detail, making it sound as though it were a new piece. Frequently you will hear details pointed out in illuminating ways, but never at the expense of musical continuity. This performance is a revelation. Although Moravec's conception of the Variations is a bit outsize, his playing of the solo works is equally convincing. The mid-60s recordings sound excellent. --Leslie Gerber

author: Ludwig van Beethoven asin: 0486450422 binding: Paperback list price: $17.95 USD amazon price: $12.21 USD

Beethoven's first 5 symphonies appear here in special unabridged four-hand arrangements. These elegant versions of the composer's masterpieces have long been favorites of duet performers. Reproduced from authoritative editions, they offer pianists of an intermediate level and beyond the chance to perform and study these famous works.

asin: B000087F5C binding: DVD list price: $24.98 USD amazon price: $22.49 USD

It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to assemble a better group of musicians to perform Beethoven's Triple Concerto and Choral Fantasy. Daniel Barenboim has been so busy conducting the world's top orchestras and opera companies that there is a danger of forgetting what an excellent pianist he is. He conducts both of these works from the keyboard, as Beethoven would have expected, engaging in chamber music-like dialogue in the concerto and creating a sense of impromptu in the Fantasy's long piano solo, which Beethoven wrote for himself and partly improvised at the first performance. Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma are sensitive, alert, and technically superb partners. The music is not Beethoven's most familiar, but it is absolutely charming. The concerto is appealing in its melodic material and the intricate interactions among the soloists and orchestra. The Choral Fantasy features a long piano solo that Beethoven wrote for himself, plus a choral melody that sounds like a preliminary sketch for the last movement of his Ninth Symphony. Both works pose unusual balance challenges, to which Barenboim and the recording engineers rise impressively. --Joe McLellan