Beethoven Complete Piano Trios
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Ludwig van Beethoven
Label: EMI
Magazine Review Date: 3/1987
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 747455-8
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Piano Trios |
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer
Itzhak Perlman, Violin Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer Lynn Harrell, Cello Vladimir Ashkenazy, Piano |
| Allegretto |
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer
Itzhak Perlman, Violin Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer Lynn Harrell, Cello Vladimir Ashkenazy, Piano |
Composer or Director: Ludwig van Beethoven
Label: EMI
Magazine Review Date: 3/1987
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: EX290834-3
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Piano Trios |
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer
Itzhak Perlman, Violin Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer Lynn Harrell, Cello Vladimir Ashkenazy, Piano |
| Allegretto |
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer
Itzhak Perlman, Violin Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer Lynn Harrell, Cello Vladimir Ashkenazy, Piano |
Composer or Director: Ludwig van Beethoven
Label: EMI
Magazine Review Date: 3/1987
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: EX290834-5
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Piano Trios |
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer
Itzhak Perlman, Violin Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer Lynn Harrell, Cello Vladimir Ashkenazy, Piano |
| Allegretto |
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer
Itzhak Perlman, Violin Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer Lynn Harrell, Cello Vladimir Ashkenazy, Piano |
Author: Joan Chissell
Ashkenazy, Perlman and Harrell don't play the piano-trio arrangements of the Septet, or the Symphony No. 2 in D. Otherwise this new album includes everything found in the Beaux Arts boxed set on Philips, i.e. the six standard trios plus the Clarinet Trio (with optional violin in place of clarinet), the E flat and Kakadu Variations, two individual trio movements (including the E flat Allegretto not included in the complete published Beethoven edition), also the composer's posthumously published first trio of all, written in Bonn before his coming of age. All this music is fitted on to four LPs as against the Beaux Arts' seven—discs which, incidentally, struck me as more vivid in sound than the rival Philips issues, especially on CD. Perhaps it was because we're told that Op. 1 No. 2 and the Ghost were recorded first in analogue and re-mixed to digital that I wondered if these two works emerge just a bit more plummytoned, a shade less pure. But perhaps that's just my imagination. Certainly the difference is slight enough not to have been noticed at all by one distinguished musician on whom I tried them out.
Recalling the sessions in his recently published memoirs (Music makers on record; Hamish Hamilton: 1986), the producer, Suvi Raj Grubb, admitted that because recorded over a period of five years in three different London and New York venues, balance was a major problem: each time positioning and microphone placing had to be worked out anew. At one point, so the memoirs relate, Ashkenazy even pretended to burst into tears because ''made to sound as if a mile up the road''. He can rest assured that this is certainly not so on the finished product. Though far too keen a listener to dominate, this unfailingly characterful pianist never lets you forget how much the composer loved, and thought through, the keyboard. Even in the slow movement of the Archduke, a comparatively late work, I felt it was the piano that was calling the tune. Compared with the Beaux Arts' Isidore Cohen, Perlman's cantabile has more body, more presence, not least in the lyrical flights of the E flat Trio, Op. 70 No. 2. As for the hyper-sensitive Harrell, his fine-grained tone is lovely enough to make me wish that just sometimes he allowed us to hear still more of it—just as Feuermann sings out the tunes on a famous old mono Archduke recording with Heifetz and Rubinstein (EMI ALP1184, 11/54—nla).
In their musical approach I'm bound to say that nearly always I found the newcomers more truly Beethovenian in style than the Beaux Arts—chiefly through judicious choice of tempo, and still more, strength of direction and stability of rhythm. Detailed comparison of each work would make dull reading even if space permitted, but in the C minor Trio, Op. 1 No. 3, how much more highly-charged both first movement and Scherzo sound for not being rushed. Explosive urgency is rightly reserved for the prestissimo finale. They also make the slow movement a flowing Andante cantabile, as requested, whereas the Beaux Arts not only take it too slowly but are too ready with unspecified changes of tempo in the ensuing variations as well as romantically over-cossetting detail. In fact, without liberties of tempo or obtrusive cadential ritenutos and the like, Ashkenazy and his team nearly always achieve stronger characterization, besides a greater overall cohesion, in all the disc's variations.
I certainly prefer the newcomers' bolder and more consistently sustained sense of direction in the Archduke's noble opening movement. they remind us, too, that its slow movement is headed Andante cantabile, ma pero con moto, even if the more yielding Beaux Arts make it a bit more spiritual—in the way that perhaps naughty Vaughan Williams meant when talking of the Beethoven who made strong men with whiskers brush away a secret tear. As when this performance emerged on its own in 1983, again I felt that the Scherzo's trio section brings a brief lapse from rhythmic precision from the pianist.
Both Teams offer an eerily supernatural slow movement in the Ghost. While the Beaux Arts risk a marginally slower tempo in response to Beethoven's Largo assai, the newcomers (who, incidentally, omit certain repeats in the outer movements) never let tension sag. I certainly prefer their flow to the Beaux Arts's seriousness in the lilting allegretto in B flat (WoO39) written by Beethoven in 1812 for his ''little friend'', the ten-year-old Maximiliane Brentano. their enjoyment in making music together (possibly just because they don't have to stare at each other's faces on the platform every night of the week) is infectious at all times and perhaps especially in the charm and gaiety of the earlier works.'
Recalling the sessions in his recently published memoirs (Music makers on record; Hamish Hamilton: 1986), the producer, Suvi Raj Grubb, admitted that because recorded over a period of five years in three different London and New York venues, balance was a major problem: each time positioning and microphone placing had to be worked out anew. At one point, so the memoirs relate, Ashkenazy even pretended to burst into tears because ''made to sound as if a mile up the road''. He can rest assured that this is certainly not so on the finished product. Though far too keen a listener to dominate, this unfailingly characterful pianist never lets you forget how much the composer loved, and thought through, the keyboard. Even in the slow movement of the Archduke, a comparatively late work, I felt it was the piano that was calling the tune. Compared with the Beaux Arts' Isidore Cohen, Perlman's cantabile has more body, more presence, not least in the lyrical flights of the E flat Trio, Op. 70 No. 2. As for the hyper-sensitive Harrell, his fine-grained tone is lovely enough to make me wish that just sometimes he allowed us to hear still more of it—just as Feuermann sings out the tunes on a famous old mono Archduke recording with Heifetz and Rubinstein (EMI ALP1184, 11/54—nla).
In their musical approach I'm bound to say that nearly always I found the newcomers more truly Beethovenian in style than the Beaux Arts—chiefly through judicious choice of tempo, and still more, strength of direction and stability of rhythm. Detailed comparison of each work would make dull reading even if space permitted, but in the C minor Trio, Op. 1 No. 3, how much more highly-charged both first movement and Scherzo sound for not being rushed. Explosive urgency is rightly reserved for the prestissimo finale. They also make the slow movement a flowing Andante cantabile, as requested, whereas the Beaux Arts not only take it too slowly but are too ready with unspecified changes of tempo in the ensuing variations as well as romantically over-cossetting detail. In fact, without liberties of tempo or obtrusive cadential ritenutos and the like, Ashkenazy and his team nearly always achieve stronger characterization, besides a greater overall cohesion, in all the disc's variations.
I certainly prefer the newcomers' bolder and more consistently sustained sense of direction in the Archduke's noble opening movement. they remind us, too, that its slow movement is headed Andante cantabile, ma pero con moto, even if the more yielding Beaux Arts make it a bit more spiritual—in the way that perhaps naughty Vaughan Williams meant when talking of the Beethoven who made strong men with whiskers brush away a secret tear. As when this performance emerged on its own in 1983, again I felt that the Scherzo's trio section brings a brief lapse from rhythmic precision from the pianist.
Both Teams offer an eerily supernatural slow movement in the Ghost. While the Beaux Arts risk a marginally slower tempo in response to Beethoven's Largo assai, the newcomers (who, incidentally, omit certain repeats in the outer movements) never let tension sag. I certainly prefer their flow to the Beaux Arts's seriousness in the lilting allegretto in B flat (WoO39) written by Beethoven in 1812 for his ''little friend'', the ten-year-old Maximiliane Brentano. their enjoyment in making music together (possibly just because they don't have to stare at each other's faces on the platform every night of the week) is infectious at all times and perhaps especially in the charm and gaiety of the earlier works.'
Beethoven Complete Piano Trios
Beethoven Complete Piano Trios
Beethoven Complete Piano Trios
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