Luogo e data di registrazione		Teldec Studio, Berlin (Germania) - febbraio 1981 (Nr. 5, 6) Kongreßsaal, Villach (Austria) - luglio 1979 (Nr. 7)
	Original Editions		Telefunken | 6.35472 FK - Vol.1 | 3 LPs | LC 0366 | durata: 46' 29" · 43' 17" · 46' 12" | (p) 1981 | ANA | stereo | (Nr. 7) Telefunken | 6.35581 FK - Vol.3 | 3 LPs | LC 0366 | durata: 53' 24" · 41' 14" · 49' 53" | (p) 1981 | ANA | stereo | (Nr. 5, 6)
	Edizione CD		Teldec | 8.43476 ZK | 1 CD | LC 3706 | durata: 49' 00" | (c) 1987 | DDD/DMM | stereo
	Executive Producer		Wolfgang Mohr
	Recording Engineer		Prof. Martin Fouqué, Siegbert Ernst (Nr. 5); Michael Bramann (Nr. 6, 7)
	Cover design		Holger Matthies
	Note		-

THE 32 PIANO SONATAS (10 CDs DMM)		Piano Sonata Nr. 5 c-moll, Op. 10 Nr. 1 Almost exactly contemporary with the op. 7 sonata and the three string trios op. 9, the three sonatas of op. 10 appeared in 1798. They are dedicated to the wife of Count Browne, whom Beethoven lauds in the grandiloquent dedication of his op. 9 as ”a gentleman of fine feelings and boundless generosity”, as ”the first Maecenas of my music”. (The Count had, among other presents, given Beethoven a horse, Beethoven - the anecdote was passed on by his pupil Ferdinand Ries - ”rode the animal a few times, but soon forgot about it”.) The order of the three sonatas distinctly recalls the op. 2 trios: in op. 10, too, the first work is an energetic, intense piece in the minor, the second a cheerful, decorative work in the major, here, too, the first two sonatas are fairly light-weight, as if preludes to the last and most important sonata. Indeed, the parallels can be taken further: while op. 2/1 opens with an universal motif (the so-called ”Mannheim rocket”), the first movement of op. 10/1 recalls an earlier composition, Mozart’s sonata KV 457, which is also in C-minor. The similarity is so striking that it can hardly be coincidence, and even holds for details like the suprise effect of the use of the major variant of the main subject for the exposition. Yet Beethoven’s sonata movement possesses a previously unheard bizarre furore, an outbreak shaken by rash impulses which makes contemporary critics’ ill-concealed resentment of such ”wild thoughts” quite understandable, if one takes the tempo indication allegro con brio at face value. It is hard to imagine that this sonata could be so degraded and disembowelled that near beginners are expected to stumble through it! After the calm cantabile of the A-flat major middle movement - into which only an occasional reminiscence of the first movement seems to infiltrate (in the unexpected forte cascades) - the finale resumes the furious character of the opening movement. Here once again is an extreme tempo, and abrupt dynamic and thematic contrast,- all the richness of a sonata movement is compressed into the most meagre dimensions - the development, closing with a hammering 4/8 motif that anticipates the Fifth Symphony and the Appassionata, numbers only eleven bars. The sonata finally expires in an unreal major passage, piano on the lowest bass notes. Piano Sonata Nr. 6 F-dur, Op. 10 Nr. 2 Something of the ”fantastic humour” that Carl Czerny (in his notes to the Beethoven sonatas) found in Beethoven's work appears in the finale of op. 10/2: It is a movement which begins like a three-part fugue, then switches immediately to the character of a scherzo in even time; nevertheless, a second subject is introduced, in the manner of a sonata movement, which in fact only comprises a variant of the fugal subject - a wanton, genial game of perpetuum mobile with various musical characteristics. If the scherzo model is, as it were, incorporated into the finale, then the allegretto of the middle movement, albeit written in the 3/4 time of a scherzo, really represents the missing slow movement in its contemplative D-flat major central section: the harmonies are already quite Schubertian. (Op. 10 nos. 1 & 2 are both three-movement works: the slow movement is ”missing” from the first sonata, while the second sonata lacks the scherzo. These are but two instances of Beethoven's individual reorganization of the conventions of external form; in his piano sonatas there is no “normal” order of movements, in contrast to those of Mozart with their regular three-movement plan.) Elements of mischievous good humour are also to be found in the first movement of op. 10/2: almost the entire development is based on the simplest possible motif from the three notes of the last bar of the exposition, which span an octave. If, however, one starts to analyse, it turns out that the same three notes also correspond to the beginning of the second subject, which is, in turn, clearly derived from a phrase in the first subject. Again, in the "false reprise” (D-major instead of F-major), the characteristic second triplet phrase is also "falsely" written - one note too high - and the “wrong” key is framed by too many - and thus metrically “wrong” - pauses that the listener cannot help but notice. Great artistry appears herr - in contrast to the fury of op. 10/1 - with smiling nimbleness. Piano Sonata Nr. 7 D-dur, Op. 10 Nr. 3 Op. 10 No. 1 in C minor is the most popular, but the most important, without a doubt, is No. 3. Its core is the slow movement, Largo e mesto, a mighty lamentation, a tragic song of mourning in pallid hues, expressing in its nuances of light and shade, as Beethovens friend and amanuensis Anton Schindler claims he was told, the state of mind of someone who has become a prey to melancholy. This largo introduces new sounds into piano music which exceed the melancholy of some of Mozart’s pieces or the expressive eccentricity of C. P. E. Bach , some passages almost seem to anticipate Liszt. Three decades later Czerny wrote: ”This Adagio is one of Beethoven’s most magnificent, but also most melancholy.” However, the irritation caused to Beethoven’s contemporaries by this piece, which they felt to be obscurely dark, was expressed in a review in 1798: ”The superfluity of ideas, of which an aspiring genius generally manages to rid himself, still frequently drives him veritably to pile his wild thoughts on top of one another and to arrange them in a most peculiar manner. Thus he often descends to a sombre art or an artificial sombreness which is a drawback rather than an advantage for the overall effect...” Evidently it was not only the late works of Beethoven that appeared incomprehensible. The bright first movement is in marked contrast, incessant rapid motion, the progress of which is almost entirely derived from a single short motif. Similarly, the Finale, with its wittily cheerful interplay of question and answer. The only movement which seems to have any emotional connection with the Largo, by providing some relaxation, is the Minuet, which is in major throughout; as in op. 2, No. 3, the allegro tempo does not assert itself until the middle section, with its demanding triplets and pointed upbeats, derived from the minuet subject, is reached.
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