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Review by krisjan May 9, 2009 (8 of 9 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics (S): |
This is splendid. If you are looking for performances played on a modern Steinway with a smaller orchestra employing period execution these releases on BIS are excellent. I'm one who prefers not to hear these works on a fortepiano so Brautigam's choice of a Steinway is greatly appreciated. I previously reviewed the SACD with the concerto No.2 coupled with the early WoO.4 concerto (reconstructed by Brautigam) and this (earlier) release of concertos 1 & 3 employs the same forces to similar excellent effect. Tempos are generally fast (especially the allegro movements) but Parrott has the Norkopping players in perfect sync with Ronald Brautigam whose piano playing is sublime.
A comparison to the Mustonen/Ondine concerto 1 is illuminating. Mustonen begins the finale of No.1 in a halting, eccentric manner. Brautigam, on the other hand, makes the notes leap off the page and Parrott's accompaniment is vital and engaging. Both recordings were made with the piano immersed amid the orchestra (lid off) but its the BIS that is more immediate sounding. Ondine's sound is more distant and less engaging. After purchaing the first installment of the Mustonen cycle, I chose not to buy the subsequent release (with concero 3 and the piano version of the violin concerto). With this Brautigam cycle in progress, there's no point in wasting money on the eccentric, less-well-recorded Mustonen. I hope the remaining concertos will be coming soon on BIS! Highly recommended.
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Review by JJ January 24, 2009 (5 of 6 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics (S/MC): / |
Beethoven's Concertos for Piano, numbering five, of which the N°1 in C major Op.15 and the N°3 in C minor Op.37 here proposed, were undeniably a poetic melting pot. "In the context of the concerto wherein soloist and orchestra play off each other," states André Boucourechliev, "Beethoven discovered the living origins of a free poetic dialogue which, while preserving the traditional form of the genre, allows itself to be forgotten: the Beethovian concerto resounds pure of all formal convention. Its temporal and sonic dimensions are thereby largely enhanced: the symphonic conception of developments and themes, of piano composition itself wherein rivals engage in a discourse of equal to equal." Conductor Andrew Pqrrott directs the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, created back in 1912, and the pianist Ronald Brautigam here captivate us (on a modern piano) by an ideal balance transversed by a fine poetic fiber that is manifest, and stunning. The articulation, phrasing, sonic dimension of the attacks exemplary of musical lucidity. Brautigam pulls it off thanks to where the instrument was placed during the recording, making each note's emotion tangible. "After having played these concertos on a piano forte", he states, "one cannot but be influenced by the different sound quality, the balance and the setting. A good number of the characteristics, for example, are hard to hear when played on a period instrument, and I truly believe that the composer was thinking about chamber music rather than a batle between orchestra and soloist. This setting, in which the members of the orchestra have a much closer contact with the pianist than in a concert setting where the pianist is in front of the orchestra, thus separated from him, woderfully enhances the dialogue. This SACD, in a finely polished multicanal and stereo recording; is an absolute must.
Jean-Jacques Millo
Translation Lawrence Schulman
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