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

asin: B00001IVOQ binding: Audio CD list price: $11.98 USD amazon price: $11.98

Hands down, this is the recording to own of two of Beethoven's chamber music masterpieces, the Kreutzer and Spring Sonatas. It captures one of classical music's greatest duos--Vladimir Ashkenazy and Itzhak Perlman--at the height of their powers, and the results are glorious, made only better by a great digital remastering. The 1973 recording of the Kreutzer is filled with impassioned playing (particularly in the case of Perlman) and spot-on tonality. The first movement is unbelievably riveting in the duo's capable hands. Spring is slightly more restrained, but just as beautiful. Simply gorgeous. --Jason Verlinde

asin: B000001GXB binding: Audio CD list price: $23.98 USD amazon price: $20.99 USD

Pollini's performances of Beethoven's last five piano sonatas have assumed almost legendary status, and this reissue at midprice in improved sound ought to win them many new friends. Sometimes considered a cold interpreter, Pollini here pays scrupulous attention to Beethoven's instructions, an attention that never gets in the way of sincere expression. There's a lot to be said for approaching this music with a maximum of clarity and simplicity, and a minimum of Romantic panting and heaving. In fact, Beethoven's instructions are so detailed, and the music itself is often so elaborately developed, that it's all most pianists can do to play it as he wrote it. Pollini does that, and much more. --David Hurwitz

author: Nicholas Marston asin: 0193153327 binding: Hardcover list price: $215.00 USD amazon price: $215.00 USD

BL A unique view of this important Beethoven piano sonata In his thorough analytical study of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E, Op. 109, Nicholas Marston suggests a unique way of understanding this important work. Using letters, sketchbooks, and other contemporary material, he builds up a detiled picture of Beethoven's compositional progress on the sonata. He provides an exhaustive study of the sources and an analytical approach to the structure of the sonata itself. The source study is based on a complete transcription of all the surviving manuscript sources for the work; the book includes a large majority of the sketches, and parts of the autograph score. The introductory chapter reviews Heinrich Schenker's work on Op. 109. The middle chapters form the core of the analytical study in which the sketches for each part of the three movements are analysed in detail, and the relevance of the sketches to the final version is explored. The final chapter extends the notion of `sketch' beyond Op. 109 and summarizes the results of the study. No stone is left unturned: even Beethoven's previously misunderstood notation of final barlines in the autograph score is shown to be of structural significance.

asin: B000001GCC binding: Audio CD list price: $71.98 USD amazon price: $39.47 USD

Wilhelm Kempff was the premier German pianist of the postwar period, so it's no surprise that he was considered one of the supreme interpreters of Beethoven. He recorded complete sets of the sonatas and concertos twice, and just about all the rest of the chamber music with piano as well. Kempff was a classicist by nature, and his approach to Beethoven was clear and poised rather than impulsive, but it was never lacking in sheer power or virtuosity when necessary. His last cycle of Beethoven sonatas is rightly regarded as his musical testament. Even if the mono recordings offered a few more exciting moments in a couple of works, you can't go wrong here--there isn't a dud in the lot. --David Hurwitz