Drawing room storm.
07/22/1999
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I can quite safely say that these days I don't perceive a big difference, aesthetically, between a Beethoven played on a shiny black Steinway and a Beethoven played BY a shiny black Ensoniq. It's all science. No sugar? No flavour more like it! In these perverted times we watch star critics praise star pianists to the skies for their "cultivated" renditions of past masters. Give me then the buzz of an early Broadwood, so unfit to carry the strain of a savage Beethoven! Let the strings jangle and tiny hammers fly all over the place! This is no "Moonlight", this is no "Appassionata"there is no moon here, this is the eye of the storm and a mute black night that follows. Mr Khouri writes in his notes how he first tried Op.57 on a later (1814) Broadwood and then switched to the present 1801, not without damage, though. This is what Beethoven is all about: discomfort. Treat yourself to it."