![]() | 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.
![]() | author: John Puccio asin: B0008EZACG binding: Digital list price: $5.95 USD amazon price: $5.95 USD |
This digital document is an article from Sensible Sound, published by Sensible Sound on January 1, 2002. The length of the article is 401 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation DetailsTitle: Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor"; Piano Sonata No. 23 "Appassionata.". (sound recording review)Author: John Puccio
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More than 70 years have passed since the Cortot-Thibaud-Casals trio waxed the Schubert B flat and Beethoven Archduke trios. Both recordings were hailed as classics in the early days of electrical recording and have enjoyed numerous incarnations on LP and CD. Even if you already own these performances, you honestly haven't heard them until you experience these new restorations. The effect is not unlike washing your eyeglasses. All the surface snap, crackle, and swish has been tamed, but more room tone emerges along with long-buried, intermingling overtones from all three instruments. There's more tempo fluctuation than modern ears may be accustomed to, along with Thibaud's slippery portamentos. Yet these devices are channeled toward specific expressive ends. Mannered they may seem, but indulgent, never. And listeners used to Cortot's freewheeling approach to solo repertoire will be surprised at how much he behaves himself in a chamber music context. Write, petition, call, beg, cajole, do anything to induce EMI to bring out the remainder of this trio's recorded output in equally amazing transfers. --Jed Distler
![]() | author: Beethoven asin: B000LRYPQ2 binding: Digital list price: $5.95 USD amazon price: $5.95 USD |
Downloadable sheet music file