Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / Beethoven's 32 Sonatas with 64 pianists: Op. 106 ("Hammerklavier")

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Beethoven's 32 Sonatas with 64 pianists: Op. 106 ("Hammerklavier") · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  This is Jed Distler and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
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  recordings.
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  You can subscribe to this podcast through my sub stack page by clicking on the link
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  in the episode description.
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  experiences and meet special guests.
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  So please consider subscribing to help us reach out further into the piano community
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  and to help to keep this podcast in production.
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  We've been exploring all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in this mini series for which I recommend
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  two different recordings of each sonata.
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  One is a recording that one can consider historic.
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  This means from the 78 RPM shellac era or the mono LP era or an archival recording that's
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  been commercially issued or else been made readily available online.
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  And the other recording that I recommend is a modern recording meaning from the stereo
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  or digital eras and is a commercial release.
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  The object has been not to repeat a pianist throughout this survey so that means we will
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  wind up with two pianists for each sonata totaling 32 sonatas and 64 pianists.
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  Beethoven fixed the inscription Führ das Hammerkleber to his last five piano sonatas
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  referring to the Broadwood company's new and improved model of a piano.
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  This British company Broadwood had sent their newest model piano to Beethoven as a gift.
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  As it happened though, the Hammerkleber inscription became most closely linked to the sonata number
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  29 in B flat major, opus 106.
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  Certainly this nickname has a formidable ring to it, Hammerkleber, and it reflects the unprecedented
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  dimensions and challenges presented in this piece which is the largest and arguably most
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  difficult of Beethoven's 32 sonatas.
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  Beethoven worked on the Hammerkleber between 1817 and 1818 at the cusp of a personally
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  difficult and creatively fallow period.
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  On the very first measure, one senses a liberation of Beethoven's pent-up energy as the ideas
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  just leap off of the pages, bursting at the seams and testing the limits of two mortal
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  hands.
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  I would bet anything that the sonata's first printed editions must have scared off consumers
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  accustomed to Beethoven's earlier and relatively playable sonatas.
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  An article in the French music journal called Le Pianiste simply dismissed the sonata as
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  impenetrable.
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  However, in the following year, 1836, Hector Berlioz praised Franz Liszt for giving what
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  he called the ideal performance of a work with a reputation of being unperformable.
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  It is performable, of course, but it still daunts pianists in regard to its keyboard
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  layout, its unprecedented time scale, and its seemingly paradoxical fusion of improvisational
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  momentum and structural rigor.
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  There are several textual controversies that continue to raise questions to this day.
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  First of all, there's the question of Beethoven's rather optimistic metronome markings, which
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  strike many pianists as being impossibly fast.
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  In a well-known video talk, Alfred Brendel starts playing the opening allegro to the
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  accompaniment of a metronome, ticking away at Beethoven's prescribed half-note equals
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  138.
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  After a few measures, Brendel stops and he disparages that tempo as being akin to silent
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  movie music.
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  However, there have been pianists who have been able to match or approximate Beethoven's
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  headlong directives, and they manage to convey a terse and forward-moving, combative, and
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  quintessentially Beethovenian sound world that thrills and exhilarates.
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  But there also are interpreters who favor broader tempos that can potentially impart
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  an expansive gravitas, I guess, and a sense of majesty that I think befits the music's
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  intricate details and grand design.
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  And then other pianists can achieve convincing results by splitting the difference between
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  these two poles, the majestic and the combative.
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  There's also a controversy about one note in the first movement, and I talk about this
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  in my 2019 Gramophone Collection survey of the Hammerklavier Sonata on Disc, for which
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  I've posted a link in my episode description.
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  And I will send PDF copies to paid subscribers, by the way.
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  I've also posted a link to the webcast for my 2018 episode of Between the Keys, where
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  I discuss the Hammerklavier Sonata in great detail, and I also present the recording of
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  this work that I will recommend as a stereo digital modern version, which we will get
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  to very soon.
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  But for my historic archival recording, I have a very unorthodox recommendation because
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  it's really a unique document.
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  It's a recording of the late composer and pianist, Frederick Ziewski, who was a great
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  friend and mentor to me.
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  And this is a recording from a concert in 1991 in Holland, where he performed the Hammerklavier
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  Sonata, but with added improvisation in each movement.
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  Frederick was known for improvising in Beethoven, and there are several recordings of him that
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  exist where he plays the Appassionata Sonata, where he's interpolating improvisation.
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  And many years ago, Frederick and I shared a concert where he improvised with the Appassionata,
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  and I played the 32 variations in C minor, and I added my own improvised cadenza right
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  before the coda.
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  I was totally imitating Frederick's example.
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  Do you know that Frederick and I actually planned to play together Beethoven's Grosse
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  Fugue in the composer's forehand arrangement, and we were going to add improvisation at
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  different points?
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  Unfortunately, Frederick died before we ever got around to this concert, although I'm sure
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  it would have been quite fun, and maybe it would have been infuriating for some audience
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  members, but I'm sorry that it never happened.
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  For my modern recorded Hammerklavier recommendation, I always cite a recording made in the mid-1980s
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  by Peter Serkin for the Pro Art label as my personal favorite Hammerklavier.
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  He had recorded the late sonatas for the Pro Art label earlier using a Graforte piano,
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  but he re-recorded the Hammerklavier on a Steinway, and it's the Steinway recording
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  that I recommend, even though it has been long out of print.
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  And that's the reason I'm posting a link to the webcast for the radio show where I played
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  this recording in its entirety, because this recording should be restored to the catalog.
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  And the reason I am recommending this recording, even though it's out of print, is because
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  Peter Serkin takes Beethoven's metronome markings pretty much on faith, and he does so with
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  the utmost ease, his playing is light and jazzy and whimsically inflected with an underlying
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  nervous energy that just keeps you off balance.
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  It's not the granitic, monumental type of Hammerklavier that his father, Rudolf Serkin,
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  referred, and Peter Serkin just swings like a maniac.
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  Oh my god.
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  I really wish that whomever has the rights to the Pro Art catalog will consider reissuing
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  this recording of Peter Serkin's Hammerklavier.
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  It remains such a vital and fresh and unusual, yet utterly compelling interpretation.
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  This is Jed Dissler, and you've been listening to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast
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  guide to piano recordings.
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  And I look forward to being with you next time as we approach the last three Beethoven
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  sonatas.
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  And what will my recommendations be for recordings?
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  You'll have to tune in and find out.
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  I look forward to being with you next time.