This remarkable set of the late Beethoven piano sonatas was recorded by Charles Rosen in four London-based vacations in EMI's Abbey Road studios between November 1968 and July 1970. His book The Classical Style was written and in proof but not yet published. They were inspiring times.
After a childhood steeped in music (he entered the Juilliard School at seven and at 11 became a pupil of Moriz Rosenthal), Rosen eventually took a doctorate in Romance languages and even taught briefly. Returning to the piano as a fully fledged professional, he made a number of formidable recordings. Liszt and Chopin concertos, sonatas by Haydn and Boulez, the first ever complete recording of the Debussy Etudes, the Double Concerto of Elliott Carter, with Ralph Kirkpatrick, and a superb three-disc Bach set for CBS that included both the Goldberg Variations and The Art of Fugue. With Bach before and Boulez aft (his Sonata No. 2 offers its own homage to the Hammerklavier) was ever a pianist more formidably prepared for this particular task?
Certainly, this is playing of high intelligence, sensitivity and great physical vigour. It is also intensely craftsmanlike—the work of a master pianist fascinated by a craft far greater than his own but which he none the less understands intimately. I remember Rosen once remarking that for him an ideal example of piano sound was not a passage from Chopin or from Debussy, but the opening of the Hammerklavier. (He added for good measure: ''Which explains why the Weingartner orchestration sounds plain silly''.) Which is why this set is as much about the aesthetic pleasure of realizing Beethoven's precisely prescribed needs as it is about other equally important things such as the interrelatedness of pulses in late Beethoven or the accurate delineation of leading voices.
Rosen always takes Beethoven's written tempo markings very seriously. The metronomes less so, though his genuinely Allegro reading of the first movement of the Hammerklavier implies a willingness to contemplate the notorious minim=138. That said, tempos are in a constant state of flux and if you buy this set you will have in your possession a remarkable essay in the steady yet flexible use of pulse in late Beethoven. Much of it is prescribed. As Rosen writes in The Classical Style (Faber: 1971): ''In late Beethoven espressivo certainly means a ritenuto as can be seen by the markings in sonata Op. 109 (un poco espressivo followed by a tempo) and Op. 111 (where every espressivo is accompanied by a ritenente). Changes of tempo, however, must always be understood as coming under a large and controlling idea of the rhythm.''
You will hear this in the very first sonata in the set, Op. 90. The finale is slower by a whole 2'08'' than Schnabel's stated ideal of 6'30''; but what rewards are to be had in Rosen's stunningly precise, yet at the same time poetic, response to the letter of Beethoven's text. What Schnabel keeps tautly 'Beethovenian', Rosen realizes as an innovatory, proto-Schubertian song without words.
The A major Sonata Op. 101 is superbly realized in all its aspects, not least the finale that borrows Haydn's trick of substituting a fugue for the development section. What is remarkable about Rosen's performance—apart from the superlative delineation of the fugal writing—is the way he allows us to perceive (he wouldn't dream of telling us) that this is one of the funniest things Beethoven ever wrote.
There is more glinting humour in the Hammerklavier's scherzo and more superlative delineation of fugal writing in the finale. Rosen plays this with a connoisseur's relish of torrentially splendid piano writing. (He almost certainly practises it for pleasure.) Perhaps it is possible to imagine the first movement being played up to tempo and with as much intelligence as here but with a robuster tone. It too, though, is very fine, as is Rosen's effortlessly clear, perfectly projected and propelled reading of the great slow movement.
The E major Sonata, Op. 109 is another lovely performance, and I cannot imagine anyone being anything other than profoundly satisfied by Rosen's reading of Op. 111. Op. 110, by contrast, may seem a little laboured. (The first movement is taken at an especially deliberate tempo.) What is incontrovertible is Rosen's masterly integration of tempos in the great web of ariosos and fugues that ends the sonata. It may be a more earthbound account than some—Kempff's visionary dazzlement (DG, 3/91), for instance—but it is astonishing how clearly the route has been mapped.
The sound of the piano and its reproduction are superb. Sony provide a decent booklet with the set; sadly, though, it omits to credit the producer and engineers: Bill Newman, Christopher Parker, Roy Emerson and Robert Gooch. (It also substitutes Rosen's own LP notes.)
I have no doubt that immense trouble was taken with these recordings. And if all this sounds too good to be true, and perhaps too considered, I should say that nothing could be further from the truth. Rosen leaves the improvising to Beethoven (the astonishing transition from slow movement to finale in the Hammerklavier, for instance, realized here with consummate skill). It is a wonderful set to sit down to in the privacy of one's own room. It is also now at budget price.'