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

asin: B0001AW052 binding: DVD list price: $24.98 USD amazon price: $22.49 USD

This disc presents one of the 20th century's greatest and most distinctive pianists in music of two pianist-composers, Schumann and Beethoven, who were among his most treasured specialties. The playing is fluent, brilliant without ever being flashy, and phrased and accented with a totally unique flavor. Kempff has power to spare, but he uses it with a restraint that heightens its impact. Kempff's style is an attractive blend of intelligence and lyric grace; he is, like Alfred Brendel. a thinking man's pianist, but his joyful plunge into the lighter moments is as significant as his subtle explorations of the music's depths. In this collection, taken from television broadcasts in the 1960s and 1970, Schumann is presented essentially as a brilliant miniaturist, Beethoven as a devotee of larger and deeper forms. Kempff takes the measure of both styles. A bonus presents a less-known but fine pianist, Dino Ciani, in Schumann's Novelette, Op. 21, No. 1 and two numbers from Bartok's "Out of Doors" Suite. --Joe McLellan

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