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| Antoni Lange (1779–1844): Frühlingslandschaft mit Teich / Spring Landscape with Lake / Wooded Landscape. 1839. Oil on canvas. 85 cm x 113 cm. Sold at Sotheby's, London, 1 December 2005, lot 3. Sold at Galerie Koller, Zürich, 18 September 2007, lot 3196. Signature and date bottom right. Wikimedia Commons. Gemeinfrei. Please click to enlarge onto a big screen. |
Beethoven: The Complete Works (80 CD). Warner Classics / © 2019 Parlophone Records Limited. Also available on Spotify etc. I bought my box set from Fuga at Helsinki Music Centre.
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770–1827.
Beethoven 250 / corona lockdown listening.
From: CD 23/80 Piano Sonatas Nos. 26, 27, 28, 29
Stephen Kovacevich, 2002 (No. 26), 1992 (Nos. 27, 28) and 1994 (No. 30)
Opus 90: Klaviersonate Nr. 27 in e-Moll (1814)
Dem Grafen von Lichnowsky gewidmet. [Moritz von Lichnowsky].
Erster Satz: Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck, 5'22"
Zweiter Satz: Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorzutragen, 7'10"
Stephen Kovacevich (1992): 13 min
AA: The first of Beethoven's late piano sonatas. For Wilhelm von Lenz, who first divided Beethoven's output into three periods, it was the last of the middle period. Passions are no longer raging, but there is an extraordinary fullness and depth of feeling.
It starts with striking, dynamic, vigorous questions and proceeds with tender, gentle and undulating answers. A spirit of nobility and generosity prevails. The emotions are direct and gentle. It has been said that for Beethoven, the first movement was about the struggle between head and heart, and the second movement about a dialogue between lovers. Indeed, András Schiff registers the second movement as a duet between a soprano and a tenor.
The sonata is simultaneously extroverted and introverted. Commentators have found in the first movement contractions, expansions, inhibitions, accelerations, connections and disconnections. Intonations in calm, gentle voices, and memories: Romain Rolland states that memories are always in high register.
In the second movement we meet Beethoven the melody maker. The movement is "very singing", as Beethoven himself instructs. The melody is sober, fresh and cheerful. A misleading simplicity contains unfathomable depths.
During the Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815, Beethoven was at the top of his fame, but that was due to hack work such as Wellington's Victory. In the same year he finished his opera Fidelio. By this time, Beethoven himself was no longer able to play his compositions the way he wanted.
András Schiff's Guardian Lecture on piano sonata No. 27 is again a deeply moving work of art in its own right, a companion piece full of reminiscences of predecessors (Bach, Mozart, Haydn) and connections with followers, most prominently Schubert.
I'm beginning to realize that besides Schiff an exceptional commentator of Beethoven's piano sonatas is Anton Kuerti who writes about the ending: "The bitter taste and the unrest that is evoked and left behind by
these passages forms a contrast to the songful health of the main theme,
and this contrast is dissolved wonderfully in the coda, when the
theme swells on majestically in order to present its hidden passions." See more beyond the jump break.
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: ANTON KUERTI ON BEETHOVEN'S PIANO SONATA NO. 27:
From: LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: THE MAGNIFICENT MASTER
From The Wayback Machine.
Contents copyright: Raptus Association for Music Appreciation 1998–2015
Site last updated: May 10, 2015
From: BEETHOVEN'S PIANO SONATA N0. 27, OP. 90
CREATION HISTORY AND DISCUSSION OF MUSICAL CONTENT
...
" The active pianist Anton Kuerti provides us with the following overview of this sonata:
Maître Kuerti's introduction to his description of this sonata also, in quoting him, became 'our' introduction. Let us repeat it here:
"For four years Beethoven wrote no sonatas, symphonies or string quartets. These were years of fermenting change for the composer, by now completely deaf, during which he turned ever more in on himself, incubating the creative energy for the stunning achievements till to come."
Not only chronologically, but also from its style, Kuerti considers this sonata to be more closely related to Beethoven's later sonatas than to its predecessors. In the event, continues Kuerti, that this has not yet been recognized, this may be due to the modest format of this sonata, and due to the absence of virtuoso display, due to the misleading simplicity of its last movement, that ends quietly and mysteriously, without any fanfares. . . .
Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck
Kuerti describes this works as one of extraordinary contrasts, particularly due to the difference between the 'angry' e-minor of the first movement and the lyrical, cheerful E-Major of the last movement. In the introductory theme, two contrasts jump out at us in the extraordinary dialogue between anger and tenderness, between the masculine and the feminine. The obviously elevated 'upward' trend of the main theme is what Kuerti describes as a central, uniting element, and each time when the music halts, this 'upward' trend sets in.
The (musical) materials, writes Kuerti, are used in a rough and ostensible manner, and everything that is unnecessary is eliminated. Also the modulations are often contracted and surprising, as for example, in the transition to the second theme (1); here, we wound find ourselves in a new key without knowing how we arrived in it.
Kuerti describes the "retreat" (2) as a second exertion, the musical equivalent of transforming water into wine, whereby the wine is the main ingredient and the water dominates the running sixteenth-notes that circle higher and higher and dominate the second half of the development. By Beethoven's stubborn repetition of only five notes of the "water" and of his reducing them first to half the speed, then to one quarter of the speed and by his finally and obsessively concentratrating on the first three notes, he forces these poor victims to transform themselves into the pattern of the main subject and to provide the introduction to the recapitulation. Kuerti finds this more typical of Beeethoven's later style than of his so-called heroic middle period.
Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorgetragen
" In the even, writes Kuerti, that we would only evaluate the finale from its first theme, then this movement would qualify itself as being closest to Schubert's style with its slightly 'lazy' tendency towards lyricism and latent sadness, and that in spite of a sweet, smiling character. However, when we then turn to the extraordinary tendencies of this Rondo, argues Kuerti, we no longer doubt who is at work here. Kuerti writes here of passages of "naked music" that even outdo the directness of the first movement . . . here, he refers to the last part of the third episode (3), the theme of which he describes as a slowly descending scale, through four bars, that repeats its descending with slightly unsettling harmonies. This passage, writes Kuerti, is extended and followed by even stranger passages, in which smaller fragments are repeated again and again, sometimes with alarming accents that convey a paralyzing feeling. . . .
Kuerti describes this as an utterly realistic language of a musical message that, in its lack of decoration, is almost naked. The bitter taste and the unrest that is evoked and left behind by these passages forms a contrast to the songful health of the main theme, and this contrast is dissolved wonderfully in the coda (4), when the theme swells on majestically in order to present its hidden passions. After this demonstration, continues Kuerti, the theme returns to its pensiveness that, in the end, dissolves like morning dew. (Kuerti: 57–58).
On Anton Kuerti: From Amazon
David Alt.
5.0 out of 5 stars Best, most extensive notes of any set
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2010
"I have recently begun to explore these sonatas in earnest, now owning and listening to 9 complete sets. Kuerti's set includes some 50 pages of his own non-technical descriptions of each sonata and Diabelli Variations. They are so readable, amusing, and sensitive that they open up these marvelous works for the novice in a way that no other set does. I have books on Beethoven and his works that are far less useful and fascinating than this set's booklet."
"As romantic and downright fun as many of these performances are, this set is worth it for the booklet alone. This is also true of his set of Schubert sonatas, which includes Kuerti's excellent observations as well."
"The recorded sound is quite good, but there is no getting around that they were recorded in the 70's. Generally, Kuerti's tempi are on the slow side, but not too much so. He goes for character and charm rather than display, but he is dramatic enough and he always holds my interest."
"I recommend this set very highly, and suggest listening to each sonata before reading Kuerti's descriptions in the booklet. You will enjoy his experienced observations all the more that way."
4 stars for the sound, 4.5 for the performances, 5+ for that marvelous booklet.
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