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

asin: B000N60H9K binding: Audio CD list price: $6.98 USD amazon price: $6.98 USD

"I don't think I've ever heard Bronfman play better." - Gramophone Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1958, Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel at the age of thirteen and later to the US, where he pursued his training at the Juilliard School and the Marlboro and Curtis Institutes under Rudolf Serkin, Rudolf Firkusny, and Leon Fleisher. Bronfman celebrated his international debut in 1975, accompanied by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Zubin Mehta. He soon acquired an excellent reputation as a pianist on the stages of the world's major concert halls. Highlights of recent years include concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, and the Vienna Philharmonic. Yefim Bronfman also gives regular piano recitals in the leading concert halls of the US, Europe, and Asia. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with the Emerson, Cleveland, Guarneri, and Juilliard Quartets. Other long-term musical partners include Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell, Shlomo Mintz, and Pinchas Zukerman. Bronfman became an American citizen in 1989. Born in 1936, American conductor David Zinman has risen to the pinnacle of his career in the last decade. His discography of over one hundred recordings has won five Grammys and two Grands Prix du Disque. Founded in 1868, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra is Switzerland's oldest symphony orchestra.

asin: 1569221324 binding: Paperback list price: $9.95 USD amazon price: $9.95 USD

26 easier Beethoven pieces, including: Allegro Con Brio, 1st movement * Andante (from Symphony No. 7) * Eroica (Theme from Symphony No. 3 in E Flat) * Fur Elise * Minuet in G * Moonlight Sonata * Ode to Joy * The Pastoral Theme * Symphony No. 5 Theme * Symphony No. 7 Theme * and many more.

asin: B00004U35D binding: Audio CD list price: $34.98 USD amazon price: $34.98

When compact discs first came out, the first thing many longtime collectors wanted to know was, When does Schnabel's Beethoven become available? That the pianist's pioneering recordings of Beethoven's 32 Sonatas for Piano have been in print almost continuously since 1935 testifies to the esteem in which they continue to be held. Schnabel's performances are best heard in Pearl's five full-priced sets (about $180), rather than in EMI's less expensive box set (just under $80). Listeners who cannot afford such an investment owe it to themselves to investigate this two-disc sampler from Pearl, featuring Sonatas Nos. 8 ("Pathétique"), 14 ("Moonlight"), 15 ("Pastoral"), 21 ("Waldstein"), 23 ("Appassionata"), 26 ("Les Adieux"), and 29 ("Hammerklavier"). Schnabel was a founding father of musical modernism, which demanded that music be performed exactly as written, with the performer serving as no more than a transparent medium. Fortunately, Schnabel's ideology was not consistent with his practice. His softening of melodic contours, his free changing of tempos, his imaginative use of tone colors, his mailed-fist-in-a-velvet-glove power, and the unearthly beauty of his singing legato in pianissimo passages were those of a full-blown Romantic pianist. Certainly, no one ever served Beethoven's music better. Whether in the chain-reaction explosions of the "Appassionata," the sustained reveries of the opening movement of the "Moonlight," or the contrapuntal complexities of the finale of the "Hammerklavier," Schnabel never failed to demonstrate a genius for keeping the listener's ears in a state of perpetual expectation. --Stephen Wigler

author: Ludwig van Beethoven asin: 0769267955 binding: Paperback list price: $18.95 USD amazon price: $18.95 USD

A collection of intermediate/advanced piano pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven.

asin: B00049QOGG binding: Audio CD list price: $8.99 USD amazon price: $8.98 USD

First the good news, though it's hardly new: Murray Perahia is a marvelous pianist. His performance of the Beethoven Sonata must be one of the best on record. Everything about it is "right": the sound is beautiful, with an extraordinary variety of touch, color and nuance; the rhythm is flexible but steady, the phrasing perfect; tempo and mood changes are subtle and poised, transitions balanced. The elusive first movement is wonderfully poetic, the Scherzo sparkles without being hectic, the slow movement is deeply expressive (truly "yearning," as Beethoven indicates), and melts naturally into the brilliant buoyancy of the Finale, ending in a burst of triumphant glory. Perahia uses a new edition of the Beethoven sonatas that he is preparing, but the innovations seem to be slight. The news about Op. 127 is less good. Composers have traditionally used the string quartet, that incomparably intimate combination, to express their inmost thoughts and feelings. Arranged as a "symphony" it loses its emotionally concentrated, inward, personal character. Doubling the parts and adding a bass makes the texture bottom-heavy, thick and muddy; moreover, it creates intonational problems for the players and restricts their freedom and spontaneity. In short, nothing is gained and much is lost in the transformation. This performance of Op. 127, though careful and conscientious, illustrates all these defects. The grand, majestic first movement becomes bombastic, the second dense and heavy; the Scherzo is too fast for clarity, aggressive rather than humorous, the Finale loses its gracious charm. Throughout, the balance is poor, the dynamic contrast excessive, with lots of whispering that seems like a failed attempt to preserve the transparency of the original. Of course one cannot gain an impression of Perahia the maestro on the basis of this disc, but one might suspect that this work was chosen--indeed created--for his conducting debut because it is both a masterpiece and a novelty. --Edith Eisler