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

asin: B00000AFQJ binding: Audio CD list price: $11.98 USD amazon price: $11.98

This troika of piano sonatas shows off some of Beethoven's most crystalline writing: from the impressionistic, sensual Moonlight to the somewhat mournful Appassionata to the wonderful, intricate aural shoving match of Waldstein. On the grounds of their sheer power, these three took novelist and erstwhile liner notician John Fowles by quiet storm. He writes in his notes to the CD that he's easily brought to tears, and that Beethoven "knew how to move people quasi-divinely." What happens in Ashkenazy's performance may--or may not--be divine. But what happens is certainly disruptive of calm, even while issuing forth a level of meditative quality that does ultimately serve to excite. There is no shortage of music in the classical annals that will astonish listeners with virtuosity and technical panache. These piano pieces will instead amaze the ears with their emotive powers, so much so that the technical brilliance of them--or Beethoven's entire late canon--might even escape the listening mind. And then you may be left, like John Fowles, crying. For more. --Andrew Bartlett

asin: B000001GPZ binding: Audio CD list price: $11.98 USD amazon price: $10.15 USD

Wilhelm Kempff was one of the great German pianists of the postwar period, and his two sets of Beethoven sonatas remain a standard by which all others are measured. He was not a flashy artist, nor was he grimly severe. Rather, he practiced a sort of natural eloquence of expression that made his Beethoven one of the most satisfying over the long haul. Individual moments may rarely leap out and grab you, but his performances leave a satisfying impression of completeness, as if no stone has been left unturned. These performances have been highly regarded since the early 1960s, and with good reason. They offer an admirable picture of Kempff as an artist, and the accompaniments are quite fine. --David Hurwitz

author: Ludwig van Beethoven asin: 0786643897 binding: Library Binding list price: $10.95 USD amazon price: $10.95

This unique series offers students and teachers a graded collection of Beethoven's piano sonatas. In addition to the only duet piano sonata Beethoven ever composed along with more difficult intermediate-level favorite sonatas, this volume contains an informative biography including a moving letter Beethoven wrote to his brothers. The table of contents provides background notes on several of the sonatas. This series is ideal for introducing intermediate to advanced students to the works of this masterful composer while providing insightful biographical notes. Some fingerings have been provided by the editor.

asin: B0000041MN binding: Audio CD list price: $32.98 USD amazon price: $63.08 USD

Recorded live in 1983, Alfred Brendel's third go-round with these works drastically improves on his previous Beethoven concerto cycles. He finds a calmer, more direct route to the Emperor Concerto, although the Fourth's first movement is still pock-marked with finicky phrase adjustments that pull focus from the music's poetic arcs. Levine provides sympathetic and alert support, yet is much more than a mere deferential accompanist. --Jed Distler