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

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Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1958, Yefim Bronfman emigrated to Israel at the age of 13 and later to the U.S., 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 début 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 United States, Europe and the Far East. 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. Yefim 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. After bringing the Baltimore Symphony to major status, he became musical director of the Aspen Music Festival and then took the helm of Zurich's beloved Tonhalle Orchestra. Zinman's discography of some 100 recordings have won five Grammys and two Grands Prix du Disque. Founded in 1868, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra is Switzerland's oldest symphony orchestra. Today it gives over 90 concerts each season featuring more than 50 different programs with the world's leading conductors and solo artists. David Zinman sees Piano Concerto No. 3 - the only one in a minor key - as a kind of "Eroica" for piano and orchestra. Just as Beethoven opened the door to an entirely new symphonic world with his third symphony, the Eroica, he also broke new ground with his third piano concerto. For Yefim Bronfman, the Fourth is the concerto "with the broadest emotional spectrum, and at the same time possibly the most dramati."

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Surprisingly, this seems to be the only coupling of the three most popular Clarinet Trios in the repertoire. The all-star ensemble, all musicians who have frequently performed together, turns out extremely fine performances of all three works. If the Brahms seems like the most thoroughly understood, in its combination of warmth and impulse, the other two works are nearly as fine. Very good sound, resonant and very well balanced, completes a total winner of a disc. --Leslie Gerber

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This concert, with Sir Georg Solti as guest conductor of The London Symphony Orchestra, marked the climax of the fifth anniversary celebrations at London's Barbican Centre. Murray Perahia, recognized as one of the most sought-after pianists, having come to international prominence as the first American to win the Leeds International Pianoforte competition, plays Beethoven's "Piano Concerto No. 1 in C" in his typically probing, elegantly poised style.

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Glenn Gould's playing is so treasured that CD publishers have been looking for anything of his they can find. These treasures, dredged from the CBC archives and Gould's own collection, offer some fresh material. The Beethoven trios, broadcast in 1954, don't sound great, but they are fine performances and show Gould as a fine chamber music collaborator. The piano pieces, from 1952, sound somewhat better and are played straightforwardly, without the eccentric ideas that crept into Gould's playing later in his career. This disc is probably for Gould fans only, but it should delight them. --Leslie Gerber