Search - Artur Schnabel, Ludwig van Beethoven :: Piano Sonatas 2

Definitive reissue of the definitive performances

A techno geek | Kihei, Maui, HI USA | 12/18/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've heard many reissues of these performances --- the Seraphim LPs, the EMI and Naxos CDs. Without question the Pearl series far exceeds the others in its fresh sound. The Pearl series sounds unfiltered --- it has the greatest surface noise, but for the first time you can actually hear the sparkle and vibrancy of Schnabel's piano --- almost like a modern recording with a lot of noise. That sparkle gives the music a psychoacoustic aliveness that is profoundly important to the emotional impact. The engineering of the new Naxos series puts the musician behind a veil of 70 years. The Pearl series brings Schanbel into your room now. The mind can filter out the surface noise and hear the vibrancy present. Perhaps someday computers will be able to do this for us (perhaps they already can---listen to the Sony reissue of Louis Armstrong's Hot 5 and 7s). As to the performances --- I've focus on the sound, because the performances are simply essential to any lover of Beethoven; when I sit down and close my eyes and listen, Schnabel more than any interpreter evokes a stream of images, moments, characters, feelings, and indescribable stories that inhabit Beethoven's musical world. It's not simply that I like Schnabel's performances. I like many other pianists' performances. But Schnabel opens the gates of the imagination."

More Schnabel Glories

Ralph J. Steinberg | New York, NY United States | 02/10/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In some ways, this is one of the more interesting volumes of Pearl's set of Beethoven's piano music under Schnabel. Here we have a fascinating contrast between those sonatas written in a more Haydn-Mozart style, as opposed to those exhibiting Beethoven's more mature, introspective manner. As for the performances, they are probably the best ever recorded. The Second Movement of No. 13 is a prime example of Schnabel getting it right through a paradoxically unconventional reading. This movement consists of a continuous running arpeggio which nevertheless must sound like chords; this can only be done at a brisk and forceful tempo. Schnabel is right on the mark here; by contrast, Kempff takes it so slowly that the effect of arpeggiated chords is completely lost, each note being detached from the next. Although these works can a slo be found in the complete EMI recording, the Pearl is far superior in sound, and also includes works outside of the Sonatas."