Search - Beethoven, Biret :: Idil Biret Beethoven Edition, Vol. 5

Idil Biret Plays Beethoven Sonatas --3

Robin Friedman | Washington, D.C. United States | 04/05/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Turkish pianist Idil Biret recorded the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in 1994. Her recordings of these great works, together with Beethoven's piano concertos and symphonies in the transcriptions by Liszt, are being released on her own label, the "Idil Biret Archives." The recordings are distributed by Naxos. Biret's readings of the sonatas are excellent ways to get to know or to revisit this music.



On this, the third CD of the sonata cycle, Biret performs three works in different styles from different stages of Beethoven's career. The sonata no 7 in D major, Opus 10 no. 3 is an early work. It was written in 1798, when Beethoven was 28. The sonata no. 21 in C major,opus 53, the incomparable "Waldstein" sonata, dates from 1805 in the middle of Beethoven's "heroic" period, which produced the third and fifth symphonies. The short sonata no. 25 in G major, opus 79 was composed in 1809. It is frequently grouped with the opus 78 sonata and the "Les Adieux" sonata, opus 81a, as a transitional group of piano sonatas between the middle-period works and the last six sonatas.



These three sonatas have in common beautifully expressive and unusual slow movements. In this review, I will focus on the slow movements in each of these works, together with Biret's lovely pianism.



The highlight of the four-movement D major sonata, opus 10. no. 3 is the second movement, Largo e mesto (slow and sad) in d minor. Although this is an early sonata, the movement is tragic and deeply mournful. It is dramatic and almost operatic in character. To the end of his life, Beethoven spoke of this movement, and he rarely surpassed it. The movement opens with a slow-pulsed hesitating theme. The movement then develops in an almost march-like section with loud climaxes and pauses. The movement reaches a high level of intensity at the end, as Beethoven writes a foreboding theme in ominously deep notes for the left hand accompanied by a swirling passionate figuration in the upper register of the keyboard. It requires a great deal of pianistic concentration to hold this movement together, and Biret succeeds admirably.



The remaining movement of this sonata are built around the Largo. The opening Presto is contrastingly brusque and highly energetic. The movement develops almost completely from the opening four-note phrase. The third movement is a light, laughing through tears minuet which relieves the intensity of the Largo. The finale is a rondo with a strangely questioning theme, which has reminded me of the finale of Beethoven's last string quartet, opus 135.



The Waldstein sonata, opus 53, is extraordinary in its scope and in its virtuosic character. In this energetic, heaven-storming music, Beethoven forever expanded the nature of composition for the piano. Early in his book "Playing the Beethoven Piano Sonatas" the pianist Robert Taub recounts how he gave a private performance of the Waldstein in the 1980s to Benny Goodman. As Taub puts it, Goodman advised Taub that if he really wanted to play a piece such as the Waldstein, he had to "make it his own." (p. 10) In other words, this sonata is not a mere matter of technique and virtuosity. One must be prepared to give one's life to a work such as this.



There is a famous story about the short but astonishing slow movement of the Waldstein. As we have it, this movement is an Introduction (it is so marked) to the concluding rondo. Beethoven had initially written a much longer, more conventional slow movement to follow the fireworks of the opening movement. When Beethoven played the work for Count Waldstein, Waldstein tactfully suggested that the middle movement was too long. Beethoven took the criticism to heart. He substituted the Intoduzione we now have and published the initial slow movement separately as the rarely-performed Andante favori. In so doing, he improved this great work immeasurably. Such is the value of responding to constructive criticism.



The slow, short Introduzione in F major, with its plaintive, harmonically unusual character contrasts with the driving, pulsating, athletic opening Allegro con Brio of the Waldstein and with the long virtuosic rondo. The rondo is of varied character and features a long singing theme punctuated by passages of octaves, trills, double trills, a concluding prestissimo and a double glissando played pianissimo near the end of the work for good measure. For all its virtuosity and drive, it is critical not to bang on this piece, which includes only a relatively few passages of fortissimos. Biret plays this difficult music with aristocratic grace, lightness and forcefulness.



The sonata in G major, opus 79, is in three short movements and takes less than ten minutes to play. Perhaps tounge-in-cheek, Beethoven called this an "easy" sonata. The opening "Presto alla tedesca" with its tempo, large skips, and hand-crossings is a challenge to the best of pianists. This work too has a short, singing slow movement in the key of g minor that Von Bulow aptly described as the first "Song without Words."



This little sonata is the only one of the 32 that uses a folk motif. The opening movement is a landler (fast waltz) which alternates between movements of foot-stomping jollity and light airiness. It is a Schubertian movement. After the sad andante, the sonata concludes with a lively quirky movement with moments of humor but also with passages of reflectiveness. To me, it is more a bittersweet than a humorous movement. A great deal of musicianship is required to capture the spirit of this little work.



Biret, a student of Corot and Kempff, offers restrained and yet romantically free readings of these sonatas. I am looking forward to hearing the remaining works in the cycle and to sharing my thoughts here on Amazon.



Robin Friedman



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