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

asin: 0486452859 binding: Paperback list price: $4.95 USD amazon price: $4.95 USD

Specially arranged and simplified, these Beethoven works for beginner pianists will delight students and teachers alike. They include such popular melodies as "Für Elise," "Ode to Joy," and the opening of the Moonlight Sonata, along with excerpts from other sonatas and highlights from the symphonies.

asin: B000PDCGXQ binding: Audio CD

Tracks:
Robert Schumann KlavierKonzert A-Moll ~~1. Allegro Affettuoso ~~2. Intermezzo (Andantino Grazioso) ~~3. Allegro Vivace ~~~Ludwig van Beethoven Symphonie No. 8 ~~4. Allegro Vivace ~~5. Allegretto Scherzando ~~6. Tempo Di Minuetto ~~7. Allegretto Vivace

asin: B000003XJY binding: Audio CD list price: $18.98 USD amazon price: $18.98

The great Russian pianist recorded these concertos again later in his career, with George Szell and the incomparable Cleveland Orchestra for EMI. Those recordings are also available on CD. However, the critical consensus seems to be that Emil Gilels was in better form here, even if Ludwig was no Szell and the Philharmonia can't match the Clevelanders in precision or collective virtuosity. Mind you, there's nothing at all wrong with the conducting or the playing--it's quite fine--but it's Gilels who carries the day. He was one of those artists with technique to burn, but who placed it firmly in the service of the most classically severe music he could find. The result is a particularly combustible blend of passion and intellect, particularly in evidence here. -- David Hurwitz

asin: B000OYC3FM binding: Audio CD list price: $16.98 USD amazon price: $16.98 USD

What a beautiful recording! Perhaps the most exciting thing about Lang Lang's playing is that when he plays softly and lyrically, he doesn't sound as if he's holding back; when he opts to stomp and yell, it sounds equally natural. The First Concerto is played with lightness and bounce in the outer movements and is as tuneful as imaginable in the stunning second movement's Largo. The Fourth Concerto is a whole other matter - mature Beethoven - and Lang rises easily to the occasion, playing with potency and handsome tone. The first movement makes us sit and admire his skill, and he is poetic and sensitive in the second movement. It would have been easy for him to run away with the final movement in a blaze of virtuosity, but he sticks to its classical outlines. These are superb performances, and the sonics are gloriously rich. --Robert Levine

asin: B0000B383B binding: Audio CD list price: $17.95 USD amazon price: $17.95 USD

Includes Symphony NO. 5 and Piano Concerto No. 4. The work of Ludwig van Beethoven has been called the culmination of the Classical era or the wellspring of the Romantic era in European music. Historians today see him as the heir of Haydn and Mozart, carrying their musical discoveries to a new level of complexity and integration. No composer in the nineteenth century could aspire to the creation of a symphony without taking into account the example of Beethoven. In his Symphony No. 5, Beethoven achieved an unprecedented degree of unity and coherence through the use of a short musical phrase called a "movite" which recurs a number of times throughout the piece. In Piano Concerto No. 4, Beethoven breaks with tradition by beginning with an understated piano solo rather than a substantial orchestral introduction. Each CD package includes two CDs. The first, a Musical Performance Disk, features the top performers and symphony orchestras in the world, performing the best-loved music from the classical music Greats. Accompanying the Musical Performance Disc is a Conductor's Guide on a separate CD. Here, Maestro Gerard Schwarz discusses the musical performances in depth--movement by movement, section by section--using examples from the recorded performances. There's no better, more enjoyable way to get a basic education in classical music. You'll also receive a 16-page printed copy of Concert Notes, featuring the unique Music Disc Timeline, which is written to synchronize with the elapsed time display of your CD player. As you play the music on the Performance Disc, you can see exactly where the things that Maestro Schwarz discussed take place in the music. It's like looking into the score--but you don't have to know how to read music!

asin: B00000GV4A binding: Audio CD list price: $7.99 USD amazon price: $31.25 USD

As a preteen, Kissin had a technique most pianists would envy. His solo recordings since have revealed a predilection for Schumann's music, each showing signs of greater interpretive maturity. Now, he uses a combination of great abandon and even greater control to produce a stunning performance of Kreisleriana. The piece is one of the last of Schumann's quixotically titled piano works consisting of generously scaled, poetic movements (eight, in this case) in which technical prowess is absolutely necessary in order to clarify the textures but hardly sufficient to deliver the full expressiveness of this lovely music. Busoni's virtuosic Bach transcription is played with great imagination, and Beethoven's delightful Op. 129 is as wittily performed as it is written. --Paul Turok