Luogo e data di registrazione		-
	Original Editions		Telefunken | 6.35490 FK - Vol.2 | 3 LPs | LC 0366 | durata: 53' 24" · 41' 14" · 49' 53" | (p) 1981 | ANA | stereo | (Nr. 32) Telefunken | 6.35596 FK - Vol.4 | 3 LPs | LC 0366 | durata: 55' 39" · 42' 47" · 65' 59" | (p) 1982 | ANA | stereo | (Nr. 30) Telefunken | 6.35596 FK - Vol.3 | 3 LPs | LC 0366 | durata: 53' 24" · 41' 14" · 49' 53" | (p) 1982 | ANA | stereo | (Nr. 31) Teldec | 6.4207 AZ | 1 LP | LC 3706 | durata 66' 00" | (p) & (c) 1984 | DDD/DMM | stereo
	Edizione CD		Teldec | 8.43027 ZK | 1 CD | LC 3706 | (c) 1984 | DDD/DMM | stereo
	Executive Producer		-
	Recording Engineer		-
	Cover design		Holger Matthies
	Note		-

THE 32 PIANO SONATAS (10 CDs DMM)		Piano Sonatas Nr. 30 Op. 109, 31 Op. 110, 32, Op. 111 The only major works for which Beethoven found the strength during the years in which he struggled with the “Missa Solemnis” are the three sonatas opp. 109, 110 and 111, written, as he claimed with some exaggeration, at a stroke. (He described them, with some bitterness, as work for his daily bread and essential to his subsistence.) The first movement of op. 109 is the most remarkable of those late sonatas, from op. 90 onwards, which are of an experimental character and deviate from the usual pattern. The enormous contrast between the vivace sections and those marked “adagio espressivo” resembles but fleetingly, almost by free association, the traditional contrast between the first and second subject of sonata form. The last movement, which is longer than the other two together, is a set of character variations, like op. 111, and there as here trills play a dominant role in the final variation. The rhythm of the theme is archaic, rather like that ofa saraband; Czerny said that it recalled the style of Handel and J. S. Bach. In op. 110, composed 1821/22, the first movement falls in with the free fantasy-like form of the first movement of op. 109 in that it resembles a free variation on a single theme rather than the classical sonata model. The final movement - which is preceded by a scherzo middle movement in even tempo - carries great weight in this sonata. Like the third movement of the string quartet op. 132, which is similarly constructed, the finale of op. 110 follows a quasi-psychological course. One cannot rule out a connection between this music and the composer’s serious illness of 1821. Op. 111 has only two movements, as did opp. 54,78 and 90 (and, in a manner of speaking, the final version of the “Waldstein”), though in all these the second movement is in a fast tempo, as is customary with finales. Here, however, as in the last movement of op. 109, we have a huge set of variations in what is basically a slow tempo, taking almost twice as long as the first movement: richly endowed with figurations, combining in itself several tempi through its changing time signatures, abundant in character as in sonorities some of which, such as the chains of trills or the long stretches of unchanged harmony, recall the last movement of the “Waldstein”. The sonata was dedicated to Beethoven’s most prominent pupil and possibly his only friend of his later years, the Archduke Rudolf of Austria, not least of all as an act of politeness towards the dedicatee, since the composer had been unable to complete, as promised, the Missa solemnis in time for his patron’s installation as Archbishop of Olmutz in 1820. 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