Alfred Brendel Plays Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas (Philips) Beethoven 32 Piano Sonatas(Alfred Brendel) http://bbs.99hifi.com/viewthread.php?tid=123035 Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven Performer: Alfred Brendel Audio CD (November 19,1996) Number of Discs: 10 Format: Box set Label: Philips PHILIPS CDA-6172 You have to have the Beethoven piano sonatas in your collection. You really do. Beethoven's nine symphonies get the attention, and deservedly so, for radically changing music forever, for elevating musical expression beyond the constraints of the Classical style. Onward. Upward. Beethoven created the first truly transc endent music, radical new harmonies and forms, music where emotional expression takes primacy over form. But if the symphonies were the extravagant public face of this transformation, t he 32 piano sonatas, standing as a single body of work, are the private, persona l works that demonstrate Beethoven's development and foreshadow the radical and sublime innovations in form and harmonic structure that would be devoured by gen erations of aficionados of the symphonies. So the question isn't whether or not to include the Beethoven piano sonatas in y our collection, but rather which collection. I'll give my five stars the Brendel . If you are listening to a musical performance for the purposes of enjoying a vir tuostic performance, you want the musician to feel free to interpret, to snub th e composer's purpose and motivation in the name of passion and talent. That's pr ecisely what you want if you are listening to Liszt's Waltzes or Rachmaninoff's Preludes for example. No disrespect. (I love Liszt's Waltzes but find I can't qu ite dance to them) But if you are listening to music to appreciate brilliant com position, then you want someone more faithful than ostentatious. That's certainl y what you want in your complete collection of Beethoven's piano sonatas. (Why? Because Beethoven was a master composer, greater than any before or after by sev eral orders of magnitude. We've been through this before.) That's what you get with Brendel. I saw him perform a Mozart piano concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he wrote his own cadenzas. He didn't bounc e around and make funny ecstatic faces, he didn't squint and gaze off into the h eavens as if receiving the music from above. He just played and played well. He wasn't a statue, he was moving around and enjoying himself but not in a showy wa y, just in service of the music. His personal touches were subtle. He wasn't a h am until the very end, when he came out again and again for more applause and ha mmed it up for an encore of his cadenzas. You don't have to thank me. Just enjoy, then turn on somebody else. --Reviewer: M. Libman (Brookline, MA) April 3, 2006 Detailed Work Information -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. Sonata for Piano no 1 in F minor, Op. 2 no 1 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1793-1795 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 2. Sonata for Piano no 2 in A major, Op. 2 no 2 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1794-1795 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 3. Sonata for Piano no 3 in C major, Op. 2 no 3 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1794-1795 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 4. Sonata for Piano no 4 in E flat major, Op. 7 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1796-1797 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 5. Sonata for Piano no 5 in C minor, Op. 10 no 1 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1795-1797 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 6. Sonata for Piano no 6 in F major, Op. 10 no 2 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1796-1797 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 7. Sonata for Piano no 7 in D major, Op. 10 no 3 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1797-1798 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio8. Sonata for Piano no 8 in C minor, Op. 13 "Pathetique" Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1797-1798 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 9. Sonata for Piano no 9 in E major, Op. 14 no 1 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1798 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 10. Sonata for Piano no 10 in G major, Op. 14 no 2 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1799 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 11. Sonata for Piano no 11 in B flat major, Op. 22 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1800 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 12. Sonata for Piano no 12 in A flat major, Op. 26 "Funeral March" Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1800-1801 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 13. Sonata for Piano no 13 in E flat major, Op. 27 no 1 "Quasi una fantasia" Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1800-1801 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 14. Sonata for Piano no 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 27 no 2 "Moonlight" Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1801Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 15. Sonata for Piano no 15 in D major, Op. 28 "Pastoral" Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1801 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 16. Sonata for Piano no 16 in G major, Op. 31 no 1 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1802 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 17. Sonata for Piano no 17 in D minor, Op. 31 no 2 "Tempest" Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1802 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 18. Sonata for Piano no 18 in E flat major, Op. 31 no 3 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1802 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 19. Sonata for Piano no 19 in G minor, Op. 49 no 1 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1797 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 20. Sonata for Piano no 20 in G major, Op. 49 no 2 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1796 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 21. Sonata for Piano no 21 in C major, Op. 53 "Waldstein" Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1803-1804 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 22. Sonata for Piano no 22 in F major, Op. 54 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1804 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 23. Sonata for Piano no 23 in F minor, Op. 57 "Appassionata" Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1804-1805 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 24. Sonata for Piano no 24 in F sharp major, Op. 78 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1809 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 25. Sonata for Piano no 25 in G major, Op. 79 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1809 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 26. Sonata for Piano no 26 in E flat major, Op. 81a "Les Adieux" Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1809-1810 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 27. Sonata for Piano no 27 in E minor, Op. 90 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1814 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio28. Sonata for Piano no 28 in A major, Op. 101 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1816 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 29. Sonata for Piano no 29 in B flat major, Op. 106 "Hammerklavier" Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1817-1818 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 30. Sonata for Piano no 30 in E major, Op. 109 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1820 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 31. Sonata for Piano no 31 in A flat major, Op. 110 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1821-1822 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 32. Sonata for Piano no 32 in C minor, Op. 111 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period / Sonata Date Written 1821-1822 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio 33. Andante for Piano in F major, WoO 57 "Andante Favori" Composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Performer Alfred Brendel (Piano) Genre Classical Period Date Written 1803 Period Classical Country Vienna, Austria Recording Studio