Beethoven: Christus am Ölberg

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1825)

Christus am Ölberg, Oratorio for Soli, Chorus & Orchestra, Op. 85 (1803)

Kermes, Davislim, Schulte,

Spering, Das Neue Orchester & Chorus Musicus

Opus 111 OPS 30-281 (DDD)

[Flac & Scan]

Mandolin & Fortepiano

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Andante con Variazioni, D-dur WoO44 Nr. 2
Sonatine, C-dur WoO44 Nr. 1

Sonatine, c-moll WoO43 Nr. 1

Adagion ma non troppo, Es-dur WoO43 Nr. 3

Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837)

Grande Sonata per Clavicemballo o Piano Forte con accompagnamento di Manolino op. 37

Giovanni Hoffmann (1770-1814?)

Sonata for Mandolin and Fortepiano in d-moll

Sonata for Mandolin and Fortepiano in G-dur

Duilio Galfetti, Mandolin

Diego Fasolis, Fortepiano (Music & Arts 47610-0 (2000)

[Flac & Scans]

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 3, 21 and 30 - Tipo (1986)

Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Sonatas

No. 3 Op. 2 No. 3 in C Major

No. 21 Op. 53 "Waldstein" in C Major

No. 30 Op. 109 in E Major

Maria Tipo

EMI 2706641 - 1986

Our beloved Neapolitan virtuoso, who turned 80 a few weeks ago, has approached Beethoven's musical milestones far from regularly in her long and bright career. I certainly remember a Concerto No. 4 in 1994 in Florence, when her delivery of the mysterious cadenza in the Andante left me mesmerized, as if she had suddenly switched from Beethoven to the Mikrokosmos.

A few years earlier, she recorded this beautiful album in Paris. Combining the early virtuosic 3rd Sonata with a middle one (the stunning "Waldstein") and an absolute masterpiece, from the late period, the first of the last three sublime meditations on the human soul, the empyrean Op. 109.

Tipo aptly adjusts her style to each of the three sonatas, and nearly moves us to tears in the first bars of No. 30.

Digital Recording.

LP rip.

1 Sonata per file.

APEs & Covers

Beethoven: Concerto for violin op61, Romanze op40, 50 - Accardo, Giulini, La Scala PO (1994)

Today's offering from Davide:

Here's the Violin Concerto, where Giulini is joined by our beloved virtuoso Salvatore Accardo (1994).

FLACs and covers

Beethoven: Symphonies nº 1 & 7 - Giulini, La Scala PO (1992)

From Davide, who says:

One very beautiful recording of the Giulini Scala Beethoven cycle, 1st and 7th (1992). Highly recommended for all the fans of the distinguished Italian Maestro, with his unique tempi and phrasing.

Beethoven: Missa Solemnis - The Monteverdi Chor, ORR, Gardiner

Ludwig van Beethoven
Missa Solemnis
Margiono, Robbin, Kendall, Miles, The Monteverdi Chor,
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner
Archiv 429 779-2

We know that the Missa solemnis has moments of the utmost and loveliest serenity, others when a spirit of confidence reigns, when grandeur is proclaimed with harmonic simplicity, and assurance affirmed with measured tread. Yet it's the great whirls of sound, the divine scattering and striving, the straining of the soul to dance in freedom from all laws of time and formal conventions that ultimately characterize the work in our minds. "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?" Exactly: Beethoven seems to be reaching beyond human grasp, and one of Heaven's good works must surely be to give the Missa solemnis its ideal performance, liberated from all constraints of matter.

Well, it now appears we do not need to wait that long. With his expert choir of 36 and his orchestra of 60 (with original instruments), Gardiner, like Terje Kvam on Nimbus before him, sheds some of the weight of numbers usually employed; he also has a team of soloists without weaknesses, and, it must be added, his own genius for making all things new. Comparison between the two recordings hardly needs to go beyond the first entry of the choir, where Gardiner's singers bring meaning and urgency to their cries of "Kyrie" which with Kvam's Oslo Cathedral Choir are scarcely more than formal statements.

Not that one would wish to follow this line of demonstration, for the performance under Kvam deserves something better than merely to serve as a foil. Still, the essential point has to be made, and one could go to the far end of the work for a further example and compare the control of tension in the Agnus Del. With Gardiner the change of key to B flat, as drums and trumpets introduce the terrors of war, is chillingly sudden: the timpani are more precisely tuned, the acoustic is sharper, the timing more dramatic. And consequently the return to peace in the "Dona nobis pacem" with its 6/8 rhythm, banishes the grim horsemen of the Apocalypse and substitutes a joyful, even frisky canter over the Elysian fields. The other performance is good, but it has nothing like this. Nor have most other recordings. For instance, the most recent, under Jeffrey Tate (EMI), creates no comparable tension, for the war passage is not really allegro assai and though things settle back with serenity they don't have this joyful buoyancy and lift.

Another factor is the very crucial matter of balance. Many recordings have brought their soloists too far forward, shine too bright a light on them, and many others have had the chorus too far back. The Tate recording is an example of the first, Kvam of the second. Here the balance is right, and separation of the various elements has been achieved without exaggeration or any sense of unnaturalness.

It is indeed an outstanding recording in every respect. If one wished to cavil, it might be over the absence of appoggiaturas now generally accepted in the quasi-recitative cries of "Agnus Dei" in the 'war' passage just mentioned, or perhaps to object that the "Pleni sunt coeli" (given to the soloists) is not so much allegro pesante as presto brillante. The Credo also goes at a tempo faster than usual, possibly not taking sufficient heed of the ma non troppo qualifying allegro. Even so, there seems nothing forced here and the relative lightness of the forces, both choral and orchestral, makes such speeds viable and with exhilarating effect, felt most magically of all in the "Et vitam venturi" fugues. Each of the soloists contributes fine work, and they are an entirely homogeneous quartet (unlike those in the Tate recording, for example). I personally have the strongest reason to regret the record's appearance at this particular moment, for it coincides with the publication of Choral Music on Records (Cambridge University Press) which AB has edited and in which the chapter on the Missa solemnis is written my myself (see page 1653). I suspect the survey would have reached a different conclusion if the Gardiner recording had then been available, for my present conviction is that it is best of all.

J.B.S., Gramophone Magazine 1991

Beethoven: Messe in C - The Monteverdi Chor, ORR, Gardiner

Ludwig van Beethoven
Messe in C
Margiono, Robbin, Kendall, Miles, The Monteverdi Chor,
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner
Archiv 435 391-2

Gardiner's genius-for that is what his capacity for renewal amounts to-is plentifully in evidence here, but the first minutes of the Mass did not strike me as boding well. Usually so good at seeing (and making his listener see) what one might call 'the face' on a sheet of music, he seems surely to have got it wrong this time. Here he makes us see the lines of the face going downwards, as in a worried expression; and of course it is true that the opening movement, the Kyrie eleison, is a plea for mercy. But its opening bars speak of comfort; there is almost the simple good faith of a quiet, very Germanic carol about them. Gardiner sets a mood of deliberate seriousness, with lowered period, pitch and a tempo rather slower than that suggested by Beethoven's (admittedly hedgedaround) direction: Andante con mow, assai vivace, quasi allegretto ma non troppo. He also appears to have encouraged the soloists, especially the soprano, to shape and shade the phrases, so intensifying the feeling of seriousness and deliberation. Happily, this policy (if indeed that is what it is) prevails for only a short time, and to some extent the music itself goes out to meet it. As the second Kyrie (following the Christe) moves towards its climax, the fortissimo brings suspensions where the alto part grinds against the soprano, and then come sudden fortissimos with intense modulations and momentary discords, all of which are particularly vivid in this performance. Chailly's highly likeable Decca recording already grows dim by comparison.

What follows has the same exhilarating quality as that which was so applauded in last year's GRAMOPHONE Awards Record of the Year, the Missa solemnis (Archiv Produktion, 3/91) and, Just as he did there, Gardiner is constantly illuminating detail while maintaining an apparently easy natural rightness throughout. Examples are: the dotted rhythm of "Et in terra pax" which dances for joy (as well it might) at the notion of a peaceful world; the sharply articulated triplets in the brass at "Deus omnipotens" and "Qui locutus est"; the effect of what on the page looks like a very ordinary bit of choral writing at "Confiteor" in the Credo. Many broader and more crucial points could be instanced; but once you've started noting the details it is unlikely that the overall effectiveness will go unappreciated.

As in the Missa solemnis, an outstanding contribution is made by the Monteverdi Choir. Splendidly athletic, for instance, are the leaps of a seventh in the fugal "Hosanna". The tonepainting of Meeresstille finds them marvellously alert and vivid in articulation; while greatly admiring the performance under Chailly (and missing in the English singers the deep bass of the Germans in the opening), I find the Gardiner recording newly exciting, as well as achieving a better balance between chorus and orchestra. The scena petfido brings a similar sense of renewal: there is not even a momentary suspicion of concert routine, but rather as though it is part of an exceptionally intense performance of Fidelio. Charlotte Margiono sings the angry passages with the concentration of a Schwarzkopf, and brings to those that are gentler-toned a special beauty of her own. The other soloists in the Mass sing well if without distinction. Distinction is certainly a word to use of the record as a whole.

J.B.S., Gramophone Magazine 1992

Mozart & Beethoven: Piano & Wind Quintets - André Previn & Vienna Wind Soloists

These are accomplished performances which I’m sure I would have enjoyed more if the picture of sound, as the LP presents it, had been truer to the music. For my taste, the piano is too distant and unfocused in relation to the wind, as if placed directly behind the wind line-up and well back. As a result, it often doesn't have enough presence in the play of colour, and its contributions to the discourse seem too remote.

I began with the Beethoven and never felt at ease with the balance, though by the last movement it appears to have improved—and with it the liveliness and sharpness of the ensemble playing, as one would expect. You can imagine Beethoven himself making a big effect in the forceful and virtuoso piano part, and I don‘t think he would have been delighted by the impression one gets of it here.

The wind stick together as a unit on their own. On the Nash Ensemble’s CRD record you sense that because the balance is right all the players can listen to each other more acutely and function better as a team. You notice too a better line to their performance, of the first movement especially, and a much better characterized range of dynamics. The Vienna Wind Soloists are too loud most of the time.

To me, the Nash‘s record represents chamber music playing of high class and offers a satisfying version of both pieces. The players are ideally matched and also a match for Mozart‘s and Beethoven‘s considerable demands on them as soloists. I don‘t get on so well with the Viennese wind: I dislike the oboe in the Beethoven slow movement, his low notes in particular, and in the slow movement of the Mozart I find the horn vulgar in his solo after the double-bar. Previn does well throughout, without ever sounding quite sure how he wants the main theme of the Mozart finale to go; and at this very moderate tempo Mozart‘s wonderful cadenza for all the instruments is rather a plod, when it arrives, instead of a high point. S. P.

MOZART. Piano and Wind Quintet in E flat major, K.452
1.I. Largo - Allegro moderato (11:10)
2. II. Larghetto (9:20)
3. III. Rondo: Allegro moderato (6:14)

BEETHOVEN: Piano and Wind Quintet in E flat major. Op.16
4. I. Grave - Allegro ma non troppo (13:33)
5. II. Andante cantabile (7:21)
6. III. Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo (5:43)

André Previn (p1); Vienna Wind Soloists (Gerhard Turetschek, ob, Peter Schmidt, cI; Volker Altmann, hn; Friedrich FaltI, bn)

Recorded in Schubertsalle, Vienna on April 24 & 25, 1985

Beethoven's Friends - Consortium Classicum

Ferdinand Ries (1784-1838)
Octet for winds, strings & piano in F minor, Op. 128
Karl Czerny (1791-1857)
Notturno Brilliant for piano & ensemble in E flat major
Reichsgraf Moritz von Lichnowsky (1771-1837)
Seven variations for piano on Paisiello's "Nel cor più non mi sento"
Louis Ferdinand Prinz von Preussen (1772-1806)
Octet for piano, clarinet, 2 horns, 2 violins & 2 cellos,
Op. 12
Consortium Classicum, Dieter Klöcker
OOP