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Beethoven's sonatas: the best recordings - Classical Music. We name some of the finest recordings of the complete cycles of Beethoven's piano sonatas available now to buy or stream.
The best fortepiano recordings of Beethoven that I've heard are all on the Globe label, a superb record label based in Utrecht: Ronald Brautigam has recorded 2CDs: early piano variations, and the first piano sonatas (opera 2 & 49). He plays a 1790s Walter.
The sound is astonishingly good, and the performances full of wisdom. Discover the best recordings of Beethoven's incredible piano sonatas on CD - click on the links to preview and buy them.
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Complete String Quartets
Quartetto Italiano Decca Overall, these performances still strike a finely judged balance between beauty and truth, and are ultimately more satisfying and searching than most of their rivals... Read the review
String Quartets, Vols 1-3
Takács Quartet Decca More probing than the pristine Emersons or Alban Bergs (live), more refined than the gutsy and persuasive Lindsays, and less consciously stylised than the Juilliards (and always with the historic Busch Quartet as an essential reference) – at no point did I feel the Takács significantly wanting. They do Beethoven proud and no one could reasonably ask for more. Rob Cowan(May 2005)
String Quartets, Op 18
Tokyo Quartet Harmonia Mundi Few ensembles have characterised the A major’s cantering first idea as happily as the Tokyos do here, while the ethereal and texturally variegated middle movements anticipate the very different world of Beethoven’s “late” quartets. Beautifully blended recordings, too: if you’re after a top-ranking digital set of Op 18, you couldn’t do better... Read the review
Complete Piano Sonatas
Igor Levit pf Sony Classical A highlight is theWaldstein, the repeated C major left-hand chords underpinning a tensile energy that runs through the entire opening movement. But it’s not about momentum: Levit colours and shapes it with such finesse – withdrawing the sound to a whisper and then building to a great billowing wave. TheAdagio moltois remarkable in the way he stills the mood, conjuring an atmosphere that sounds almost like a postscript to Schubert’sWinterreise. As the music gradual...
Songs
Stephen Genz bar Roger Vignoles pf Hyperion The 26-year-old Erfurt-born baritone Stephan Genz is in the first bloom of his youthful prime. His Schumann Liederkreis, Op 24 (5/98) was the first recording to give serious warning of the distinctive lyric ardour and keen intelligence of his artistry; and now Beethoven’s setting of Goethe’s ‘Mailied’ (Op 52 No 4), with its lightly breathed, springing words, could have been written with Genz in mind... Read the full review in the Reviews Database
Choral Fantasia. Triple Concerto. Rondo for Piano & Orchestra
Pierre-Laurent Aimard pf Thomas Zehetmair vn Clemens Hagen vc Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Arnold Schoenberg Choir / Nikolaus Harnoncourt Warner Classics Listening to the opening tutti on this joyful new Triple Concerto, I could just picture Nikolaus Harnoncourt cueing his strings, perched slightly forwards, impatiently waiting for that first, pregnant forte. This is a big, affable, blustery Triple, the soloists completing the sound canvas rather than dominating it, a genuine collaborative ef...
Missa Solemnis
Laura Aikin sopElisabeth Kulman mezJohannes Chum tenRuben Drole bass-barArnold Schoenberg Choir; Concentus Musicus Wien / Nikolaus Harnoncourt Sony Classical This is a remarkable account of Beethoven’s Missa solemnisand, in one important respect, an unusual one. For though it is in no sense lacking in drama, it is in essence a deeply devotional reading. And aptly so. ‘Mit Andacht’ – ‘with devotion’ – Beethoven writes time and again during the course of the work. Where many of the Mass’s most...
Fidelio
Stemme; Kaufmann; Lucerne Festival Orchestra / Claudio Abbado Decca It was Abbado’s second Berlin Philharmonic symphony cycle from 2001 which thrust him more or less unexpectedly into the ranks of the immortals where Beethoven is concerned. And it was seven years after that, in Reggio Emilia in 2008, that he conducted his first Fidelio. Like Furtwängler in his 1953 studio recording, Abbado leads a viscerally charged performance that flies to the very heart of the matter, and does so in a vers...
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- Pathétique. To single out just a few. The most important of the early Sonatas is the Pathétique. For the first time Beethoven uses a slow introduction, and an introduction of such weight you know something truly significant is going on.
- The Moonlight. The most famous movement of any of the 32 Piano Sonatas is the opening movement of The Moonlight – the Sonata he composed for the woman he wanted to marry, Giulietta Guicciardi [see Chapter 6, Beethoven’s Women].
- Waldstein. We already know the origin of the Waldstein from Chapter 3, The Spaniard. The gloriously spacious theme of the final movement is prefaced by a mysterious, fragmented middle movement, which presages it perfectly.
- Appassionata. Wagner’s favourite was the Appassionata. He loved playing it, and marvelled at the theme of the first movement rising from the depths. Once again, as with the Pathétique, the middle movement is simplicity itself, almost a theme on a single note.
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote 32 mature piano sonatas between 1795 and 1822. (He also wrote 3 juvenile sonatas at the age of 13 [1] and one unfinished sonata , WoO. 51.) Although originally not intended to be a meaningful whole, as a set they comprise one of the most important collections of works in the history of music . [2]
Experience the magic of all 32 Ludwig van Beethoven piano sonatas in this captivating 10 hours collection. The timeless brilliance of Beethoven's music is ta...
- 626 min
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- Best of Beethoven
