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

asin: B0002W3EDG binding: Audio CD list price: $16.99 USD amazon price: $26.88 USD

Here's an inspired appendage to the Aimard-Harnoncourt set of the Beethoven Piano Concertos. When new, the Triple Concerto, combining three solo instruments with orchestra, was considered a bold new type of concerto. That's how it's played here. The solo trio blends nicely with the orchestra, giving the work a chamber music dimension. Once past the slow introduction, Harnoncourt conducts a vigorous, almost rhapsodic performance, with great forward momentum. But the honors go to the outstanding soloists. Aimard etches the piano line with exceptional clarity, Hagen, the cellist of the Hagen Quartet, plays with gorgeous tone, while violinist Zehetmair, who also leads a quartet bearing his name, almost steals the show through his agile playing and phrasing that cuts to the heart of the music. I know of no better performance of this work. The Choral Fantasy too comes off as more than a weird combination of a solo piano fantasia and a choral sketch for the last movement of the Ninth Symphony. And pianist and orchestra play the daylights out of the quirky Rondo in B-flat major. --Dan Davis

asin: B00000DI34 binding: Audio CD list price: $23.98 USD amazon price: $23.98

Murray Perahia isn't about flash and, as this diverse collection of music reveals, the pianist's true brilliance is his dedication to the integrity of each composition. Scarlatti's Sonata in B Minor leads things off and reveals Perahia's recent love for baroque music (check out his excellent recording of Bach's English Suites Nos. 1, 3, & 6). Chopin's Ballade No. 1 seemingly unfolds itself in the pianist's hands. Perahia plays close attention to the composition's details but never loses sight of its free-spirited nature. Of course, nothing is quite so free-spirited here as Bartók's Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, where Perahia showcases his faultless technique on the dissonant and adventurous work. Another highlight is found on disc 2, where Perahia leads the English Chamber Orchestra in fine form through Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25. --Jason Verlinde

author: Ludwig van Beethoven asin: 0769267955 binding: Paperback list price: $18.95 USD amazon price: $18.95 USD

A collection of intermediate/advanced piano pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven.

asin: B00004YA0S binding: Audio CD list price: $62.98 USD amazon price: $55.50 USD

Otto Klemperer's Beethoven is one of the towering achievements in the history of recordings. By today's standards, these performances are hopelessly old-fashioned: dark, heavy, and frequently very slow. But they are also the grandest, most unsentimental, most purposeful versions in the catalog. In addition, the relatively slow tempos (only in the fast movements--the slow ones are pretty swift) and forward wind balance permit more detail to be heard than in most original-instrument performances. At budget price and with the entire piano concerto cycle thrown in for good measure, this is greatness incarnate. --David Hurwitz

asin: B000006O34 binding: Audio CD list price: $33.98 USD amazon price: $33.98 USD

Much of the repertoire here is new to Richter's ever-growing discography, notably 53 minutes worth of transcendent Liszt Années de Pelerinage excerpts, and a haunting Ravel Le Gibet. A live Beethoven Pathetique sonata proves more individual and arresting than Richter's excellent studio recording, as does this 1954 Weber 3rd Sonata to the better- recorded 1966 Philips version. Richter fans, however, will truly be floored by a whirling Ravel Alborado del gracioso and Rachmaninoff's Études- tableaux in E-flat, played better than humanly possible. Don't pass this set up! --Jed Distler