Sunday, 3.30.08, 5:06 pm
New Releases: CDs
Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 4)
"New Releases" posts are regular columns that feature reviews of new CDs that are, for one reason or another, truly outstanding among the many I come across every month.
This continues the review of Brilliant’s complete “Beethoven Edition”.
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Earlier this month, the great Alfred Brendel (pronounced Brendl, not Brendélle) gave his farewell performance at Strathmore Hall. In Anne Midgette’s review for the Washington Post, she states that Brendel “won renown fairly early in his career as the first-ever pianist to record all 32 Beethoven sonatas.” (A mistake promptly parroted by Ben Roe during a conversation with Brendel sponsored by WPAS at the Embassy of Austria.)
I assume an overzealous editor decided to replace “all 32 Beethoven sonatas” for “complete piano works”, because an experienced music critic like Mme. Midgette would hardly commit the blunder of giving Artur Schnabel short shrift, who finished recording the first Beethoven Sonata cycle when little Alfred was but four years old, and almost thirty years before Brendel finished his own cycle for Vox-Turnabout in 1964. (The alternate explanation is that the words “in stereo” got dropped*.)
What distinguished Brendel’s recordings on Vox from the other complete sonata cycles that came before them (Wilhelm Kempff, Wilhelm Backhaus, Friedrich Gulda, and Yves Nat all got to that in the 50 and early 60s) was the inclusion of all the Bagatelles and (almost) all the Variations. It is that part of the thin, but perfectly pleasant and clear sounding Vox LP-set (since re-issued on CD) that Brilliant chose to license for their complete Beethoven set.
If you are going to listen to these (largely) obscure works of Beethoven, it might as well be a master Beethovenian like Alfred Brendel to bring them to you and do them justice. The collection includes major works like the massive “Eroica Variations” on an original theme from The Creatures of Prometheus op.35, the Diabelli Variations, and the Six Bagatelles op.126, but also 13 Variations on the Dittersdorf Air “It was once an old man” WoO66 and yet more variations – eight – on Süssmayr’s theme “Flirting and Joking” WoO76.
Not all Beethoven works are created equal, and there are some rather light or insubstantial pieces on these five Variation and Bagatelle CDs – but many, probably most, surprise by how good and pleasant they turn out to be and how neglected they are. Interestingly, Brilliant didn’t bother to remove Sonata no.20, op.49/2 from Variation-disc no.1 – which is where it was placed in the Vox re-issue. Whether the placement amid the miscellaneous piano pieces, rather than the sonatas, originally was an expression of the slight nature of this sonatina, or simply due to space constraints, I can’t determine. But now the Brilliant set offers two accounts of it – Brendel and, as part of the complete sonatas, Friedrich Gulda.
Back then, Brendel elected not record the three “Electoral Sonatas”, which Beethoven wrote at the age of eleven. They may not be considered part of the canon of the 32, but are no less slight (if perhaps a tad more awkward in some transitions) than the two (‘accidentally’ published?) op.49 pieces. I don’t propose renumbering the sonatas in the canon, but inclusion of these three short pieces would behoove any new sonata cycle. Ulrich Staerk takes to that task in original recordings for Brilliant, just like Georg Fridrich Schenck takes on the other various piano pieces that Brendel missed. (Notable among them only the two short Preludes op.39 and the Fantasia in g-minor op.77.) The piano duo Frank Zabel – Stefan Thomas works through 4-handed piano œuvre – which includes the op.6 sonata in d-minor, three marches op.45, yet more variations and – very interestingly – the Beethoven arrangement for piano 4-hands of the Große Fuge op.135.
Now to the 32 Piano Sonatas. Every traversal of this sonata cycle is daunting and, just for the very achievement of it, impressive. Because it is so impressive, I rarely encounter a negative review of any complete cycle. Even more obscure and perhaps even lesser pianists that tackle this monumental task get an “A for effort”. Still, there really is only a good handful of wholly recommendable cycles. Artur Schnabel is a must for many connoisseurs but the sound quality prohibitively bad for newcomers or casual listeners. Alfred Brendel (who, together with Daniel Barenboim, is the only pianists to have recorded the entire cycle three times**) manages excellence every time, is safe, and uneventful.
To this day, the mono (1951-56) and stereo (1962-64/65) cycles of Wilhelm Kempff are reference recordings. Even more somber, impressing through immense clarity and understatement, are the Backhaus readings, the later stereo cycle of which is a much cherished favorite of mine. Paul Badura-Skoda has a quintessentially Viennese cycle on a Bösendorfer (Gramola) from the late 60s and one on fortepianos (Astrée/Naïve, oop). Claudio Arrau’s very temperate, musical readings (Philips 1962-1966 and again in the 80s) continue to stand the test of time, though they will leave impatient listeners frustrated.
Among modern cycles, especially Richard Goode (Nonesuch) and possibly Stephen (Bishop-) Kovacevic (EMI) stand out, and recent additions come from Gerhard Oppitz (Haenssler), Paul Lewis (Harmonia Mundi), András Schiff (ECM), and Maurizio Pollini (DG) who, with the release of the op.2 sonatas, is only one disc away from finishing his cycle that started more than three decades ago with his unparalleled recording of the last Beethoven sonatas.
Amid all this competition, the second cycle of Friedrich Gulda from 1968 – originally recorded for Amadeo Records, Austria and soon incorporated into the Decca family – stands out for me as the most consistently satisfying. Without any false humility, Gulda said about these recordings in an interview with Austrian Broadcasting’s Kurt Hofmann:
“In these recordings I can detect, with a good deal of benevolent interest, my own development. I would not record Beethoven like that anymore, were I to do it again, but it is quite listenable. A few things are a little bit extreme in the tempi, or borderline… Still, I have to admit, I admire it… this completely coherent achievement, namely to play all the Beethoven sonatas so that they come across with an incredible perfection – I have to say, with the distance of twenty years now, that I understand why this recording became a bestseller and why it still is one.”
When I first went Beethoven Sonata cycle shopping, both of Gulda’s recordings were out of print in North America, so I discovered his interpretations fairly late – when Brilliant Classics re-issued it three, four years ago. As one of the least expensive sets available, I didn’t resist it for long – and what a surprise it turned out to be. Despite the alleged exaggerations (which aren’t all that wild, in retrospect), Gulda brings us what I consider the most consistently satisfying, ever pleasing integral recording of these works. I continue to have other favorites in individual sonatas – but my go-to set and reference has become Gulda. More intense (with that extra wee bit of spunk) than either of Kempff’s readings, never lumbering like Anton Kuerti (Analekta) nor professorially sincere like Schiff, consistently more engaging and probing in the late Sonatas than Ashkenazy (Decca), more flexible than Backhaus, not as patricianly flowing (borderline plodding) as Arrau, Gulda somehow manages to combine a highly personal reading with a compromising stance that appeals to the many rather than offending most. (Which is more or less what he ended up doing in his late career, when he forced jazz upon unwilling classical audiences and classical music upon displeased Jazz audiences.)
That Brilliant managed to snatch the re-issue rights from Universal is astounding. (I’ve heard that the person in Hamburg that said “Yes” didn’t quite know what he was doing, in the process undermining Decca’s plans to re-issue the same set on their Eloquence Edition.) While there cannot be a “best” complete set to all ears, there is no doubt that among the 60-plus extant complete cycles, Gulda’s second can be safely ranked in the very top group, with sound, technical facility, and interpretation at a level that should satisfy most of one’s needs. My personal predilection for the understated Beethoven of Backhaus means that I’d probably part with Gulda before that of his elder German colleague, but as a primary complete cycle I recommend the Austrian, not the stoic German. Whether as part of this complete box or as a stand-alone set, Gulda should grace every better Beethoven collection.
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* Kempff’s third cycle (1962-65) – in stereo – came hard on the heels of Brendel’s Vox/Turnabout cycle (1958?/61-64). In 1956 EMI began a projected complete Beethoven cycle with Walter Gieseking, but after ten sonatas were recorded, Gieseking passed away. Friedrich Gulda’s first Decca cycle (1954-58) was only partially in stereo. Barenboim’s EMI cycle was recorded between 1965 and 69.
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** Wilhelm Kempff started recording Beethoven in 1926 and nearly had a cycle finished by 1945, but with op.2/3; op.22; op.27/1; op.28; op.31 #2; and op.101 still missing.