A winner!
John Austin | Kangaroo Ground, Australia | 01/20/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"A friend of mine had some piano lessons with the great English pianist Solomon. Keen to impress him with her dedication to music, she said to him one day, "I've been studying form lately"."And have you found a winner?" Solomon, it seems, was a horse racing enthusiast. Well, this CD is certainly a winner. "Indispensable" one Gramophone reviewer calls it. It is one of a series of five CDs recently issued by Testament, making available the 18 Beethoven piano sonatas Solomon recorded. Why only 18 of the 32? A crippling stroke ended Solomon's career in 1956. As a piano student myself, I used to struggle through No 18 in Eb, finding it to be trite, predictable and commonplace. Having to cross hands occasionally seemed the only thing to relieve the unremitting boredom. Well, listening to Solomon play it is like discovering that an unlamented corpse can suddenly spring back to life and be transformed into a lively, beautiful and treasured companion. Four sonatas are contained on this CD, providing almost 80 minutes of great Beethoven playing. The recordings were all made in the early 1950s and are amongst the best ever accorded to this pianist."
Will the sound ever be these recording's only default?
John Austin | 04/06/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Nothing to say about the interpretation, only the thing that sometimes he playes to fast according to what is written on the partition. But these 18 sonatas Solomon recorded should be in every beethoven fan's collection.This is no mecanical play, but a real dive in feelings and emotions. For those who really like seeing pianists, he's the one i what with the most pleasure:
his fingers are like waves on the keyboard, the wrists practically never move, it's really an incredible play"