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Beethoven's 32 Sonatas with 64 pianists: Op. 28 ("Pastoral") · 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. You can subscribe to this podcast through my sub stack page by clicking on the
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  link in the episode description. Paid subscribers get bonuses such as Piano Maven Zoom meetings
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  where we can share listening experiences and meet special guests. So please consider subscribing
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  to help us reach out further into the piano community and to keep this podcast in production.
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  So you get all the goodies with a paid subscription, but if you take out a free subscription, that's
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  okay too. You'll still get to hear the podcasts, but all of the cool little extras, you got
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  to shell out something, but please consider doing so. That would help us so much. So now
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  we are more or less at the halfway point of a mini series that I started to launch our
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  second season of the Piano Maven. And in this mini series, I recommend recordings for each
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  one of the 32 Beethoven sonatas. I recommend two recordings for each sonata, one historic
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  or archival recording, and one modern recording from the stereo and digital eras. And my goal
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  is not to repeat a pianist over this process so that in the end we will have discussed
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  32 sonatas and 64 pianists. And I should reiterate that I am not necessarily saying that all
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  of these are my favorite recordings of these pieces, although in some cases they are, but
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  that all of the performances that I recommend have great distinction, at least I hope they
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  do. I feel they do. And I don't think there are any weak links in the performances I'm
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  recommending. I'd like to think that. Maybe you will agree or disagree, but that's the
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  way it is. So we arrive at Sonata No. 15 in D major, Opus 28. This sonata probably got
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  its nickname, the Pastoral, because of the opening fifth beginning of the finale. It's
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  kind of a drone that evokes the sound image of a shepherd pipe, I guess. And also that
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  genial, denatural pedal point in the bass at the beginning of the first movement, I
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  think has a pastoral connotation. In my search for a historic or an archival recording with
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  the pianist that I had not yet discussed, nor a pianist whom I plan to recommend in
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  later sonatas, I did find a really nice live performance with the pianist Wilhelm Bachhaus.
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  And he's on remarkably good form in this live performance, considering that it's from 1969,
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  only three months before his death. Bachhaus was famous for his Beethoven, and he recorded
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  two complete Beethoven sonata cycles for DECCA, one in mono and one in stereo. Actually, he
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  never got around to remaking the Hammerklavier sonata in stereo. I often find Bachhaus to
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  be inspired and communicative, but sometimes he's cavalier in terms of detail, and his
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  slow movements, to my taste, tend to be kind of perfunctory. Anyway, although I admire how Bachhaus
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  played the pastoral sonata in his studio stereo remake, giving it broad brushstrokes and with
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  a beautiful full-bodied sound, he also brings these same virtues to the 1969 live performance
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  that appeared on the Audit label. But I think he does so even more impetuously and with
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  a lot more spontaneity, especially in the finale, even though I have to admit he struggles
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  a bit here and there. It doesn't really matter, because I think the performance is so much
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  in the moment. And even his old-fashioned breaking of hands in the first movement, for
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  some reason it bothers me less in this live performance. I don't know why. Maybe I was
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  just getting into the performance. But he really does move things along in this performance,
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  and he does sound younger than his 84 years, that's for sure. Now, my modern recommendation
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  for a stereo digital recording of Opus 28 may well surprise you, because this is not
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  a recording from a pianist that you would normally associate with Beethoven, even though
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  she did record the five concertos as a cycle. I'm talking about Alicia de la Rocha. Her
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  recording for RCA of the Opus 28 sonata is really transparent and heartfelt and totally
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  stylish from top to bottom. Her phrasing of the andante evokes the image of a wind ensemble
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  with the détaché bass notes sounding very much like a perky bassoon and the legato right
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  hand representing maybe a clarinet or horn, maybe. I also love how she totally nails those
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  treacherous final measures in the fourth movement. This is one of the hardest passages that Beethoven
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  ever wrote, and I'm curious that people don't really talk about how challenging it is. These
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  pages are, I mean, this section, this coda is not easy to play. But Alicia de la Rocha
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  just sails through it. Do you hear the siren in the back? Anyway, Alicia de la Rocha's
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  recording of the Beethoven pastoral sonata was recorded in 1992, and originally it filled
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  out a disc containing her performance of Beethoven's first concerto with Michael Tilson Thomas
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  conducting. And this performance was linked to a television series that was called Concerto
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  with an exclamation point. And the series was hosted by Dudley Moore, and you had concertos
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  featuring different instruments. And by the way, I think this was Alicia de la Rocha's
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  only Beethoven sonata recording on commercial discs, so far as I know. So in that regard,
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  I'm very happy to recommend it because not only is it an excellent version of Opus 28,
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  but it allows us to represent one of the greatest pianists of her time in our roster. So I'm
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  very happy to do that. This is Jed Disler, and you've been listening to the Piano Maven,
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  your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings. And we will continue with Beethoven's Opus
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  31, number one sonata next time.