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Review by Beagle April 25, 2007 (5 of 5 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics (S): |
[NOTE: This is a mini-review; I currently lack the energy for a full blown anything, but I'd like to comment on this disc before it slips below my listening-horizon.]
I will not compare this disc with any other performances and say that A is better than B. This particular disc has a charm -- several charms -- of its own, which one will simply never find elsewhere. Perhaps Zeus will add a new star category for Serendipity, this disc gets five.
CHARM NUMBER ONE
I have been enjoying Brautigam's fortepiano cycle of Beethoven works very much because (1) the ungrandiose sound of the fortepiano always brings a smile to my soul, (2) I feel like I am hearing Beethoven rather than Ashkenazy and (3) Brautigam extracts more from a fortepiano than most pianists do from a Steinway. I feel like I have re-discovered or perhaps discovered for the first time, Beethoven playing his own instrument. (Note that I did NOT say "hearing what Beethoven heard"; deafness, you know.) In a like manner, this disc makes familiar Mozart NEW again.
CHARM NUMBER TWO
Itoh plays these pieces like I have never heard them before. Everyone else has been Too Polite. Itoh is spirited, bordering on mad-cap. She gave me more happy moments than I've had in a long while. That being said, I will now mention that this fortepiano is a modern replication, but it is not exactly a model of modern mechanical perfection. Replicated along with its charms are some early design limitations. The instrument allows Itoh to trill madly down the straight-away but she has to ease back on the curves to keep the hammers from ricocheting into multiple strikes on the strings. So what? Welcome to reality ca. 1780. Itoh is like the jockey who won the Kentucky Derby on a facultatively 3-legged horse. Brava! I am subtracting a half-star from the instrument's performance, not Itoh's.
PS: It's DSD, so you will hear every soft whump of every lever -- but it's all the more charming for it.
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