Search - Beethoven :: Beethoven Piano Sonatas

Five stars album!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 05/25/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

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This is an album worthy to collect. Regardless its very low price, it contains three well different visions around Boon' s beloved son.



The First CD has to do with a masterful pianist: Walter Bohle, whose name was totally unknown until I listened in this pack. His pianism reminds so much to the young Brendel of those fifties. He owns that undeniable Viennese taste, where the sound of the piano exceeds the limits of the fortissimos. A limpid and crystalline ornaments these three sonatas; the No. 15 Op. 28, one of the most intimate works of Beethoven. The Sonata No. 13 Op. 27 No. 1 is by far, the best achievement of this singular pianist. Profoundly introspective with vision of grandness, Bohle makes of this Op. his body of work, sheer pianism and discrete enchantment, played with serene passion and inspiration.





The Second CD is totally performed by Paul Badura Skoda playing on a Hammerklavier pianoforte. This CD presents us the Sonata No. 3. Badura Skoda loves this work and pays this grateful Op. with untamed energy and lyric charm. Sumptuous refinement and mercurial flair, makes of this performance one of the most radiant recordings of this selection. The "Pathetique" has always been for Badura, a battle horse, and one of his major achievements. You may realize the perennial influence of his teacher. Edwin fisher. "les adieux" is a memorable interpretation, loaded of that nostalgic taste, so typical of the work, depicted with ardor and sense of grandness.





In the CD no,. 3 Badura Skoda shares honors with his friend and colleague Jörg Demus, who makes a convincing performance of the sonata No. 18. In this album, Badura Skoda ( at last) decided to play the Sonata No. 12 with a piano, and even the whole reading is extremely light ( I would have wished perhaps major dynamic in the tempos), the approach is sincere and even aristocratic, without the required tension in some passages, but keeping that cantabile line along the performance. The First Sonata is enjoyable and exquisite from start to finish.



So, given the low budget of this inversion, you may be sure about you will never be disappointed.

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