Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / Beethoven's 32 Sonatas with 64 pianists: Op. 81a ("Les Adieux") and Op. 90

Transcript

Beethoven's 32 Sonatas with 64 pianists: Op. 81a ("Les Adieux") and Op. 90 · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:00
  This is Jed Distler and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
• 0:14
  recordings.
• 0:15
  You can subscribe to this podcast through my sub stack page by clicking the link that's
• 0:22
  in the episode description.
• 0:24
  Late subscribers get bonuses such as piano maven zoom meetings where we listen to music
• 0:30
  together and meet special guests from time to time.
• 0:34
  So please consider subscribing to help us reach out further into the piano community
• 0:40
  and to keep this podcast afloat and in production.
• 0:45
  We are exploring all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas and this episode brings us closer to the world
• 0:53
  of the late sonatas with two very different kinds of works.
• 0:57
  The sonata number 26 in E flat, opus 81a and the sonata number 27 in E minor, opus 90.
• 1:08
  And throughout our exploration of the 32 sonatas, I've been recommending two different recordings
• 1:15
  for each sonata with the aim of not repeating any pianist over the course of the miniseries.
• 1:23
  One recording I recommend is historic in nature, meaning a mono LP or from 78s or a live archival
• 1:32
  broadcast version.
• 1:34
  And the other recording is something that's closer to our time, a stereo studio or live
• 1:39
  recording or a digital recording.
• 1:42
  So that means that with the 32 sonatas, we will have discussed to 64 pianists by the
• 1:48
  time we get to the end of the road.
• 1:51
  The sonata in E flat, opus 81a is subtitled Les Adieu and it's the only one of Beethoven's
• 1:59
  32 sonatas that is intentionally programmatic, meaning that Beethoven himself set out the
• 2:07
  program.
• 2:08
  He dedicated the composition to his friend and patron, the Archduke Rudolf, to commemorate
• 2:14
  both Rudolf's departure from Vienna in May 1809 upon the invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte's
• 2:22
  troops and his return to the city the following year.
• 2:27
  The introduction's opening motif resembles a horn call that indicates a farewell and
• 2:34
  Beethoven symbolically spells out the first movement title, L'Ebevole, farewell, under
• 2:41
  the first three notes, the du du du du.
• 2:45
  Yet there's nothing sad or wistful about the ebullient allegro that follows.
• 2:51
  The second movement, Abwesenheit, depicts the Archduke's absence in expansive ruminative
• 2:59
  terms, while the finale, Das Wiedersehen, celebrates a joyful return.
• 3:07
  And here the music's darting scales and headlong momentum are very much in line with other
• 3:14
  heroically inspired Beethoven middle period finales.
• 3:19
  So in a way this piece retains some of the fervor and energy characterizing Beethoven's
• 3:26
  big middle period sonatas, like the Waldstein and the Passionata, but in a more compact
• 3:32
  context, perhaps.
• 3:35
  For my historic choice, I've picked a recording made on May 31st, 1929 by Leopold Godofsky.
• 3:44
  Technically it's absolutely solid and poised, and there are only one or two telltale moments
• 3:51
  that reveal this pianist's general unease in recording situations.
• 3:58
  The playing is very straightforward and direct in terms of what we consider good, modern
• 4:04
  Beethoven style, although I cannot honestly say that Godofsky conveys the nervous energy
• 4:10
  and the sense of tension and release that one finds in Arter Schnabel's more inflected
• 4:16
  and urgent brand of Beethoven pianism.
• 4:20
  But we did recommend Schnabel for Opus Two No. 1, so I can't recommend him all the time.
• 4:26
  But still, Godofsky's recording is a valuable document of a major pianist in a substantial
• 4:33
  Beethoven sonata, and we are lucky to have this recording.
• 4:38
  For the modern choice, I've nominated Van Clyburn.
• 4:42
  I remember when the American critic B.H. Hagen singled out Van Clyburn's mid-60s recording
• 4:50
  of Les Adieux for Praise, and he found it superior in every way to Godofsky.
• 4:56
  He made a rather unfair comparison.
• 4:59
  But I do think that this performance remains Van Clyburn's finest achievement in Beethoven's
• 5:05
  music on disc.
• 5:07
  It has the easygoing lyricism and breadth that Clyburn was known for, but it also has
• 5:14
  power and joyful rhythmic drive in the outer movements, and also Clyburn's effortless
• 5:20
  dispatching of those difficult and very uncomfortable double note patterns in the first movement
• 5:27
  will give many of today's hot shot virtuosos pause.
• 5:30
  Here, I think Van Clyburn the pianist and Van Clyburn the musician triumphantly merge.
• 5:38
  After Beethoven composed Les Adieux, five years passed before he wrote his next piano
• 5:45
  sonata, the Two Movement Sonata in E minor, Opus 90.
• 5:50
  He wrote it in August of 1814, shortly after revising his opera Fidelio.
• 5:57
  The first movement's terse and compact nature is partly due to the fact that Beethoven eschews
• 6:05
  a traditional first movement exposition repeat, not to mention how much of the development
• 6:12
  section is generated from the first theme.
• 6:15
  At the same time, there's a restless kind of a stop and start aura that justifies Charles
• 6:23
  Rosen's description of the music's quote unquote despairing and impassioned mood.
• 6:30
  The second movement follows a strict sonata rondo template with the lovely theme in E
• 6:37
  major appearing three times, and its final iteration appears in the tenor rather than
• 6:43
  in the soprano voice.
• 6:45
  Much ink has been spilled over how the music foreshadows Schubert's kind of unpressured
• 6:52
  lyricism.
• 6:53
  Although the sense of surprise that one gleams from the sudden and quiet a cello rondo in
• 7:00
  the final measures is pure unadulterated Beethoven, this is very much a connoisseur's kind of
• 7:07
  sonata.
• 7:08
  My historic choice features a pianist who is known more to connoisseurs than to the
• 7:13
  general public.
• 7:15
  The pianist is Ernst Levi, who lived from 1895 until 1981.
• 7:22
  I recently devoted an episode of my radio program between the keys to Ernst Levi's
• 7:28
  artistry, and I played his recording of Opus 90 on the broadcast.
• 7:32
  I've provided a link to that episode's webcast in my podcast description so that you can
• 7:39
  hear for yourself.
• 7:41
  This recording dates from the mid-1950s and was recorded at the Kresge Auditorium at MIT
• 7:49
  with Peter Bartok engineering, so that the mono sound is actually quite vibrant and impactful,
• 7:56
  and so is Ernst Levi's dramatic and dynamically contrasted pianism.
• 8:02
  For my modern recorded version of Opus 90, I have long held the 1960s recording by Ivan
• 8:10
  Moroves as a point of reference.
• 8:14
  His unforced lyricism and his many refinements of touch and articulation are major assets
• 8:21
  here, especially in the second movement, but there's a strong backbone behind his beautiful
• 8:27
  sound which is really apparent in the first movement.
• 8:31
  And you'll notice his control of those very difficult rapid rotary patterns in the left
• 8:37
  hand.
• 8:38
  This is something the pianists will probably notice more than general listeners.
• 8:43
  Now had I not cited Sviatoslav Richter's Appassionata a few episodes back, perhaps I would have
• 8:51
  nominated Richter's 1971 studio recording of Opus 90 as a reference.
• 8:58
  But Moroves is even more faithful to Beethoven's markings, especially his sudden subito dynamics
• 9:06
  and phrasings.
• 9:08
  Actually Moroves also has a terrific recording of Les Adieux that is worth seeking out.
• 9:14
  But for both communicative warmth and a firm structural spine, I would nominate Ivan Moroves
• 9:22
  in Opus 90 for the modern recording recommendation.
• 9:27
  It still is a standard bearer, and the Ernst Levy recording is wonderful too.
• 9:35
  This is Jed Dissler, and you've been listening to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast
• 9:40
  guide to piano recordings.
• 9:43
  And we have the Opus 101 sonata in our next mini-series Beethoven episode.
• 9:50
  We're now getting into the late sonata, so hold on to your hats.
• 9:55
  I look forward to being with you next time.