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

asin: B000BC8T8C binding: Audio CD list price: $29.98 USD amazon price: $79.56 USD

Have you ever wished to be present as a great instrumentalist teaches gifted pupils? Sony's set of Alfred Cortot's Master Classes can satisfy that fantasy, as well as provide insightful performances of works (and excerpts of works) including some Cortot never recorded, and hearing him expound on them from a performer's point of view. It's possible thanks to an engineering student who taped many of Cortot's classes in the late 1950s and Murray Perahia, who tracked down the tapes and produced this invaluable set. Don't understand French? Not to worry--French texts and English translations of Cortot's remarks are provided. We also hear Cortot playing with spontaneity and captivating spur-of-the-moment impetuousness, if also with rather more wrong notes than the fastidious would like. The inevitable frustration of wanting him to play an entire lengthy work soon gives way to appreciation for his insights and the beauties of the excerpts he's highlighting. Those insights include technical points like pedaling, rhythm, and touch. But more often he's teaching a work's expressive content. He'll relate a Beethoven Sonata to a love story or the way Chopin's Ballades reflect the Adam Mieckicwicz poems said to inspire them. There's Bach, Mozart, and Schumann here too. Cortot's main point, the lesson that pervades these discs, is one all aspiring artists need to absorb: "Technique can never really be separated from musical expression." This set is must for pianophiles, students, and admirers of one of the last century's greatest artists. --Dan Davis

asin: B00004W9BS binding: DVD list price: $29.98 USD amazon price: $29.98

Fantasy for piano, choir and orchestra in c minor op.80. The Choral Fantasy was the first time Beethoven united instrumental and vocal music into one seamless and masterful work. This production features the pianist Gerhard Oppitz and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti as well as the Sudfunk Choir directed by Joseph Beischer. It was recorded in the magnificent 500-year-old Gothic Amandus church in Bad Urach, Germany. The second part of this program again features Gerhard Oppitz, a leading pianist renowned for his expressive yet forceful touch. Oppitz is captured here at his best, performing Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor BWV 903 and Franz Liszt's Variations on Bach's cantata "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen". This DVD also includes the option of viewing running commentaries on the pieces as they are performed as well as liner notes, a glossary of music terms, historical markers for the pieces, and performer profiles. Audio playback options are 5.1 dolby digital and non-compressed stereo.

asin: 0739012584 binding: Paperback list price: $3.50 USD amazon price: $3.50

"Sonata quasi una Fantasia" 1st movement only in it's original form with performance notes and information on Beethoven.