Search - Jenö Jandó :: Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Volume 10

For those who must have everything Beethoven wrote

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 03/27/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Nobody will claim that the last volume in Jenö Jandó?s Beethoven Piano Sonatas edition is particularly exciting: of the seven pieces on this recording, only one is a mature Beethoven sonata, the so-called ?Pastoral? (No. 15), which Jandó here plays with his usual gusto and sensitivity for what the composer intended, making for circa 23 minutes of fascinating listening. Of the other six pieces that can be heard here, there is, however, little to say. The so-called ?Kurfürsten-Sonaten? WoO 47 (thus named because of their dedication to the Kurfürst or Elector) are jaunty, relatively simple (and not the less entertaining for that!) works by the eleven- or twelve-year old Beethoven (published in 1783!). The sonata described here as No. 36 WoO 51 is an unfinished piece later prepared for publication by Ferdinand Ries and not really containing anything that needs to be heard today. And the two sonatinas numbered here 37 and 38 are either spurious or must, judging from the sound of them, have originated not too long after the Kurfürsten sonatas in Bonn ? their style is too Haydn-ish to be much later, but as yet they have not been proved to be by Beethoven at all.



Jandó plays along with this in his usual jolly fashion, but the whole production seems, by this time, to have run out of steam, the recording quality not being up to the standard of the previous volumes in this generally excellent series. This is really just one for those who must have everything Beethoven wrote, and that at the Naxos price.

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