Luogo e data di registrazione		Teldec Studio, Berlin (Germania) - ottobre 1981 (Nr. 8) Kongreßsaal, Villach (Austria) - luglio 1979 (Nr. 14, 23)
	Original Editions		Telefunken | 6.35472 FK - Vol.1 | 3 LPs | LC 0366 | durata: 46' 29" · 43' 17" · 46' 12" | (p) 1981 | ANA | stereo | (Nr. 14, 23) Telefunken | 6.35596 FK - Vol.4 | 3 LPs | LC 0366 | durata: 55' 39" · 42' 47" · 65' 59" | (p) 1982 | ANA | stereo | (nr. 8) Telefunken | 6.42913 AG | 1 LP | LC 0366 | durata 54' 00" | (p) & (c) 1983 | DDD/DMM | stereo
	Edizione CD		Teldec | 8.42913 ZK | 1 CD | LC 3706 | (c) 1983 | DDD/DMM | stereo
	Executive Producer		Wolfgang Mohr
	Recording Engineer		Eberhard Sengpiel (Nr. 8); Martin Fouqué (Nr. 14, 23)
	Cover design		Holger Matthies
	Note		-

THE 32 PIANO SONATAS (10 CDs DMM)		Piano Sonata Nr. 8 c-moll, Op. 15 "Pathétique" Unfortunately for its interpreters, the ”Pathétique” is one of Beethoven's sonatas which are all too well known, one might almost say “played to death". As early as 1842 Carl Czerny stated in the comments to his edition published in that year that this sonata was easier to master than all its predecessors, and consequently had always been a particular favourite. To this day students who are looking for a titanic, "tragic" Beethoven first movement to perform with thunderous panache choose this work. The ”Grande Sonate pathétique”, as it was entitled when published in 1799, is the only sonata for piano to which Beethoven himself gave a descriptive name, as opposed to the apocryphal ”Appassionata”, ”Pastorale” etc. The reviewer of the Leipzig ”Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung” wrote rather restrainedly of the first edition: "The only objection that the critic might raise against someone like Beethoven... is that the sonata’s theme strikes one as too reminiscent, though the critic is unable to say of what, but certainly the idea is not a new one.” Thus, for example, the ”grave” introduction to the first movement with its dotted rhythm and sequence of diminished seventh chords sounds operatic, and both the first and second movement contain reminiscences of Mozart’s C minor sonata K 457 written 15 years previously. On the other hand, there is scarcely any model for the manner in which Beethoven quotes a characteristically varied excerpt from the introduction at the beginning of the development, then combines the main theme and the melody of the “grave” into the subiect of the development and, at the end of the movement, juxtaposes with drastic brevity these two thematic elements in their original form. Again, there are hardly any models for the frantic urgency which gives the first movement its special character, here the broken octaves in quavers in the left hand which in the past - as in the Mozart sonata mentioned above - were treated more as cosy, stereotyped accompanying figures are transformed into the muffled drum roll of an imaginary orchestra. - This sonata is dedicated, as were the piano trios op. 1 which preceded it and later also the sonata op. 26, to Prince Carl Lichnowsky, probably Beethoven's most eminent patron, of whom he was to say in 1805: "He is truly one of my most faithful friends and promoters of my art - something fairly unusual in that class.” Piano Sonata Nr. 14 cis-moll, Op. 27 Nr. 2 "Mondscheinsonate" Beethoven called both works of op. 27, written in 1800/01, ”Sonata quasi una Fantasia,” in order to draw attention to their deviation from the usual form, the movements merge into one another as in a Fantasia, and in op. 27, No. 1 they are even formally interwoven. The first movement is ternary, with two different tempi; towards the end of the last movement the Adagio is echoed - an anticipation of techniques employed by Beethoven in his late works. The Sonata in C sharp minor, although, and perhaps because, it is certainly not one of his greatest works, has attained a popularity that is not easily explained. Thus, a Russian Beethoven enthusiast complained that in Paris at the end of the 1820s only three of Beethoven’s sonatas were ever played: the one in A flat op. 26; op. 27, No. 2 and the ”Appassionata.” Beethoven himself is supposed to have told Czerny that people were always talking about the sonata in C sharp minor, for all that he had certainly written better pieces. No doubt the work owes much of its popularity to the first movement. The Berlin critic and poet Ludwig Rellstab, for instance, imagined himself in a boat on the moonlit Lake of Lucerne (hence the name "Moonlight Sonata”); others heard in it a lament for the dead, Czerny wrote: ”It is a nocturnal scene with the voices of a ghost mourning from afar." There has been speculation, too, about a link beetwen the work and the dedicatee, the young Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, to whom Beethoven was close; she may possibly have been the addressee of the much debated letter to the “Immortal Beloved.” From that point of view the sonata is the pessimistic expression of hopeless love, which surely is too romantic, too subjective, too facile an interpretation. Examined from the viewpoint of a fantasia, the Adagio would appear to be a large, dreamily improvisatory introduction followed first by a contrasting short central movement in the major in the manner of an intermezzo, and then by the principal movement proper, a Presto in the same key as the Adagio, C sharp minor, a taxing piece that races along, a true sonata movement in form. Piano Sonata Nr. 23 f-moll. Op. 57 "Appassionata" The ”Appassionata,” the name of which, like so many others, is not Beethoven’s own but was added by a publisher in 1834, was composed in 1804/05, in a period which saw a number of other great works, among them the Waldstein Sonata, the Triple Concerto and notably ”Fidelio.” Sketches for the sonata, which is dedicated to Beethoven's friend and patron Count Franz von Brunsvik, are contained in a notebook which is mostly taken up with work on the opera. Beethoven’s pupil Ferdinand Ries tclls the following story of the composition of the sonata: "Throughout the whole of a long walk, during which we lost our way to such an extent that we did not return to Döbling until eight o’clock, he had been muttering and sometimes howling to himself, always up and down, without singing any specific notes. When I asked him what he was doing he replied: ’I have just thought of a theme for the final Allegro of the sonata.’ When we got indoors, he hurried to the piano without even removing his hat. I sat down in a corner, and soon he had forgotten my presence. Then he thumped away for at least an hour at the new, beautiful finale of the sonata.” This finale, linked directly to the tranquil variations of the third movement by strident dissonances, rages like a ceaseless tempest; virtuosity, never an end in itself, is totally subservient to expressiveness. The movement hardly ever strays from the minor, there is no gleam of light, no solace. Indeed in the presto coda, which at first introduces a new, pounding theme, the furious arpeggios and broken chords which dominate the whole movement develop into thunderous sounds that erupt into an apocalyptic uproar. In abstract terms the first movement, too, is largely constructed of simple broken triads; the exposition is not repeated in the usual manner, but is like a fantasia in the grand concertante style with continuous variation on two themes, the second one being merely a kind of free inversion of the first. As in the Finale, there is a stretta coda, but after hugely massed chords it subsides quite unexpectedly into a wan pianissimo. The whole movement is permeated by a knocking motif which in the recapitulation disturbingly underlies the first subject for some time and seems to foreshadow the opening of the fifth symphony. Jean Meuchtelbach
1 CD - 8.42761 ZK - (c) 1984 1 CD - 8.43027 ZK - (c) 1984 1 CD - 8.43206 ZK - (p) 1985 1 CD - 8.43415 ZK - (p) 1986 1 CD - 8.43477 ZK - (p) 1987	1 CD - 8.42913 ZK - (c) 1983 1 CD - 8.43111 ZK - (p) 1985 1 CD - 8.43334 ZK - (p) 1986 1 CD - 8.43476 ZK - (p) 1987 1 CD - 8.43478 ZK - (p) 1987