Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / Beethoven's 32 Sonatas with 64 pianists: Op. 101

Transcript

Beethoven's 32 Sonatas with 64 pianists: Op. 101 · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:00
  This is Jed Dissler and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
• 0:11
  recordings.
• 0:12
  We are coming toward the end of our mini series devoted to all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas
• 0:21
  and 64 pianists, meaning that I am recommending two recordings for each sonata and without
• 0:29
  repeating a pianist.
• 0:31
  One recording is historic in nature and one recording is modern in nature.
• 0:37
  I don't know if the word nature means anything in this context, but you know what I'm talking
• 0:42
  about if you have been following this mini series.
• 0:46
  And before I talk about the piano sonata in A major, number 28, opus 101, I should tell
• 0:54
  you that you can subscribe to this podcast through my sub stack page and there's a link
• 1:00
  in the episode description.
• 1:03
  And if you take out a paid subscription, you get all kinds of goodies.
• 1:07
  But please consider subscribing to help us reach out further into the piano community
• 1:13
  and to keep this podcast in production.
• 1:16
  The more people who know about this, the merrier.
• 1:19
  The sonata number 28 in A major, opus 101, is a work in four movements, although the
• 1:26
  third movement really serves as an introduction to the finale.
• 1:31
  Although the sonata that came next after the sonata had the name Hammerklavier attached
• 1:38
  to it, it's sometimes forgotten that Beethoven also affixed the name Hammerklavier to opus
• 1:44
  101, although it stuck to opus 106 and not this one.
• 1:49
  I really love this piece, opus 101, because it contains all of Beethoven's quintessential
• 1:57
  qualities.
• 1:58
  The opening movement expresses Beethoven's tender and lyrical side with unusual eloquence,
• 2:05
  even for Beethoven.
• 2:06
  And the subtle contrapuntal layout of the keyboard writing and the care he takes over
• 2:12
  voice leading has always made me wonder how this music might sound played by a string
• 2:18
  quartet.
• 2:19
  I mean, whenever I play this movement on the piano, I can't help but think of the inner
• 2:24
  voices in terms of the second violin and the viola.
• 2:29
  And the theme seems to open in mid-sentence because it begins in the dominant key as if
• 2:35
  the music had already been in progress before the piece actually began.
• 2:41
  And I just noticed something looking in my score, that there is only one place in this
• 2:48
  movement where Beethoven marks fortissimo.
• 2:52
  So that means that a pianist really has to be careful about judging his or her scaling
• 2:58
  of the dynamics.
• 2:59
  I'm always getting on people's cases about getting too loud too soon or never playing
• 3:05
  softly enough, you know, things like that.
• 3:08
  By total contrast, the second movement scherzo is a rather quirky march characterized by
• 3:15
  obsessive dotted rhythms that scurry up and down the keyboard.
• 3:20
  And this movement I think is deeply rooted in what Robert Schumann composed for his middle
• 3:26
  movement of the C major fantasy.
• 3:30
  Beethoven here is at his most combative with dissonances in your face and hard-hitting
• 3:36
  trills and this is a really difficult movement to play in terms of control and balance and
• 3:43
  rhythmic precision.
• 3:45
  And even some of the very best pianists can get flustered by Beethoven's demands.
• 3:51
  As I said earlier, the slow movement is actually an introduction into the finale, which features
• 3:57
  a very demanding four-voice fugue that is no less challenging as the hammer-clavier
• 4:04
  fugue.
• 4:05
  Well, maybe it is, but it's certainly not easy to play.
• 4:09
  I've chosen several recordings that are quite different from one another, yet these pianists
• 4:15
  share a meticulous approach to reading the score.
• 4:20
  My historic recommendation comes from a recital for German radio recorded in July 1955 featuring
• 4:29
  the Hungarian pianist Geza Anda.
• 4:32
  Now he made a studio recording of this work a few years later for the EMI label in June
• 4:39
  of 1958 I believe, and I like that studio recording very much.
• 4:44
  But I find this earlier radio broadcast even more spontaneous and expressively inflected.
• 4:52
  I love the ever so slight hesitancies of phrasing in the first movement because they convey
• 4:59
  a sense of two people who are just meeting and looking to find common ground.
• 5:04
  But once that march kicks in, you get the precision of the commercial studio recording
• 5:10
  with just a little more feeling of abandon here.
• 5:14
  Geza Anda was always a pianist who zeroed in on little details rather than one who took
• 5:20
  a step back to take in the big picture.
• 5:23
  But this 1955 radio performance of Opus 101 lets the big picture in more than Geza Anda
• 5:30
  usually allows in his interpretations.
• 5:34
  For my modern recommendation, I turn to a pianist whom I've been privileged to get
• 5:40
  to know personally, and I also did an extensive interview with him on my radio show Between
• 5:46
  the Keys about Beethoven's music.
• 5:49
  I'm talking about Martino Tirimo, who has recorded Beethoven's complete solo piano
• 5:56
  output.
• 5:57
  In these recordings, Tirimo tends to favor slow tempos, but he sustains them wonderfully
• 6:04
  well by virtue of his super scrupulous attention to details in terms of voice leading, note
• 6:13
  cues, dynamics, phrasings, peddling, yet nothing ever sounds ponderous or pedantic in his hands
• 6:21
  because the inner rhythm and the cumulative momentum never loosens its grip when Martino
• 6:29
  Tirimo plays.
• 6:31
  This is a quality that still makes the best recordings of the conductor Otto Klempwer
• 6:37
  stand out, where the concentration and integrity of this musician cannot help but compel you
• 6:44
  to listen.
• 6:45
  And in this sense, Martino Tirimo is like the clumperer of the piano, at least in this
• 6:52
  sonata.
• 6:54
  His performance is direct.
• 6:56
  It's deliberate.
• 6:57
  It's focused beyond belief and tough as nails.
• 7:03
  This is Jed Disler, and you've been listening to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast
• 7:09
  guide to piano recordings.
• 7:12
  Our next episode in this Beethoven mini series will discuss the monumental Beethoven Hammerclavier
• 7:19
  Sonata, the Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106.
• 7:25
  And which recordings will I recommend?
• 7:28
  I think you are going to be surprised, or maybe you won't be.
• 7:33
  Anyway, I look forward to being with you next time.