Track Listings (28) - Disc #1| All Artists: Ludwig van Beethoven, Alfred Brendel Title: Beethoven: Bagatelles Members Wishing: 0 Total Copies: 0 Label: Philips Release Date: 11/25/1997 Genre: Classical Styles: Forms & Genres, Short Forms, Historical Periods, Classical (c.1770-1830), Instruments, Keyboard Number of Discs: 1 SwapaCD Credits: 1 UPC: 028945603124 |
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Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Alfred Brendel :: Beethoven: Bagatelles
 | Ludwig van Beethoven, Alfred Brendel Beethoven: Bagatelles Genre: Classical
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CD ReviewsSensitive renditions of Beethoven at his most personal 07/04/2003 (5 out of 5 stars) "Listening to this CD, it is quite easy to conjure up a picture of Beethoven playing at home, by himself, for himself. These pieces are among his most intimate and this recording gives the feeling of eavesdropping outside the composer's open window (something he never tolerated, by the way!). Many of the bagatelles are such gems that one can only regret that LvB didn't do more with them. If you are one of those people who think Beethoven only wrote loud and bombastic music, listening to this recording will immediately dispel any such nonsense. This recording is also Brendel at his best. Understated and elegant, he lets the music speak for itself. None of the regrettable -- and regrettably common -- fireworks or idiosyncratic interpretations that tend to mar Beethoven recordings by, say, the likes of Bernstein, Gould and Kovacevich. The previous reviewer is simply wrong. This is an incredible recording that impresses me more with each playing." Never call them trifles! Jeff Abell | Chicago, IL USA | 12/26/2006 (5 out of 5 stars) "In addition to his 32 sonatas, astonishing "Diabelli Variations," and 5 concertos with orchestra, Beethoven also composed a series of smaller pieces he called "bagatelles." The name, which more or less designates a little nothing, a bit of whimsy or fluff, scarcely designates the imaginative and emotional content that Beethoven often invested in these little works. Many were studies for other pieces, or ways of trying out ideas before developing them in larger works. Listening to Alfred Brendel play these works is revelatory: he convinces you that these short works are perhaps the most profound things that Beethoven ever penned. He knows them intimately, having edited some for the Wiener Urtext Edition of Beethoven's works. Yet while he brings these pieces a sense of gravitas, he never forgets that brevity is the soul of wit. In short, this disk lets you enjoy Beethoven's final works for his own instrument played with as close to perfection as you're going to get." Poor compared to Brendel's earlier recordings of the same john | USA | 04/17/2004 (2 out of 5 stars) "If you've never heard the Bagatelles, they are a trove of delights, done in the sentimental vein of the Pastoral symphony.Having grown up with a scratchy record I once had of the young Alfred Brendel playing the Bagatelles, I am a true affecionado of his charming, simple (in the good sense) interpretations. As another reviewer before me said, other interpreters tend to be too egocentric in their approaches. Yet upon hearing the very first bagatelle on this CD, I knew something was very amiss. This is not Brendel as I remember him!
It turns out that this is not Brendel's first recording of the bagatelles. I'm sorry I cannot tell you what date the recordings I used to have were from, but I have learned that Brendel recorded the bagatelles as early as the 60's.Basically, these new recording (done in the 90's) has sadly lost a great deal of the early recording's brilliance, snappiness, and wit. Brendel sounds indifferent and it seems even as though his strength has debilitated. To boot, the sound engineering is bad. The piano never sounds 'there', dynamics as I said are monotone, and you can hear Brendel humming regularly." |
