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

author: BEETHOVEN L asin: 063409906X binding: Paperback list price: $9.95 USD amazon price: $9.95 USD

Schirmer Performance Editions are designed for piano students and their teachers as well as for professional pianists. Pedagogical in nature, these editions offer insightful interpretive suggestions, pertinent fingering, and historical and stylistic commentary. Prepared by renowned artists/teachers, these publications provide an accurate, well-informed score resource for pianists. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) is renowned for his large-scale, innovative piano sonatas and concertos, and these works hold a prominent and lasting place in the concert repertoire. Yet nestled beneath the larger works for which he is most often lauded lies a vast collection of short piano solos that he crafted throughout his career. These miniatures often display the same careful writing and attention to detail as his longer works. Some were actually intended as pedagogical studies; many derive their style from the popular dance music of the period and reflect Beethoven's love of simple, everyday pleasures. Editor and recording artist: Matthew Edwards

asin: B0001ZM8TK binding: Audio CD list price: $16.98 USD amazon price: $16.91 USD

The Beethoven Triple Concerto is a strange work, with the most important---or at least prominent---solos given to the cello; it is the instrument which introduces each movement. The remarkable Martha Argerich wisely allows Mischa Maisky to shine in his solos and leading position, but her contribution is anything but back seat. Her customary virtuosity is everywhere in evidence, and, in a way, she turns the piano into the spinal column of the work, with the violin and cello playing around her. Every time Maisky is about to lapse into a mannerism which might detract---too much sliding, a dynamic slightly exaggerated---Argerich brings him back, and both of them play with handsome tone. Capucon's violin is recorded a bit stridently (this was taped live in Lugano), but his playing is equally stunning. Alexandre Rabinovitch-Barakovsky leads the orchestra matter-of-factly until the final movement, when he catches the proper fire. In the Schumann A minor concerto Argerich is wonderful the solo passages and a fine partner in orchestrated ones and she really makes much of both the lyrical runs and the dance-like passages in the last movement. Recommended. --Robert Levine

asin: B0000V86PA binding: Audio CD list price: $64.99 USD amazon price: $64.99

Artur Schnabel Complete Piano Sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven 8CD set

asin: 073900526X binding: Paperback list price: $5.95 USD amazon price: $5.95

Complete original "Moonlight" sonata by Beethoven. Excellent background and performance notes.