Author: Barenboim, Daniel

Format: Import

Release Date: 14-09-1999

Details: Daniel Barenboim was in his mid-to-late 20s when he recorded all 32 Beethoven sonatas for EMI. His expansive tempos and rhetorical attitude, however, suggest the musings of a weathered veteran of the German school. At this stage in his career, there was no question that Barenboim¹s instinct for Beethoven's confrontational style was genuine and deeply felt. Yet, there's a self-conscious aura surrounding the pianist's accentuations, breath pauses, and tempo fluctuations. These expressive devices seem grafted onto the music, rather than emerging as organic components of a more internalized vision. True, Barenboim's torrential dash through the Moonlight Sonata's hard-to-control finale and the Appassionata's fiery opening pack a cathartic wallop. But Claudio Arrau's similarly conceived yet more technically polished and musically seasoned versions surpass Barenboim's aspirations to be the Furtwängler of the piano. Incidentally, Barenboim eschews Beethoven's crucial third-movement repeat in the Appassionata. For headlong brio and terse concentration, Rudolf Serkin's 1963 traversals of these oft-recorded "name" sonatas for CBS deserve a sonic facelift on the order of EMI's beautiful, lifelike remastering here. --Jed Distler

UPC: 724356699120

EAN: 0724356699120

Languages: English

Binding: Audio CD

Item Condition: UsedVeryGood