Fazıl Say – Beethoven

Patricia Kopatchinskaja & Fazıl Say - Beethoven Ravel Bartók Say (feat. violin Patricia Kopatchinskaja, piano Fazıl Say) (2008)
EAC Rip | FLAC +CUE + LOG | 294 MB | no scans
MP3 | CBR 320kbps | 154 MB
Classical/Piano/Strings/Chamber | Label: Naive | 67:21

The young and trendy duo of Moldavian violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Turkish pianist Fazil Say rips deliriously into a highly enterprising program as if tomorrow were a chancy affair. It’s more than their hearts that they wear on their sleeves; they lay out their emotional guts in a dazzling display of virtuosity and breathtaking musical entertainment. At one moment in Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” sonata, Kopatchinskaja’s racing along, clipping eighth notes in a furious rush to the finish; at the next she’s finding aphrodisiacal sweetness in a simple, two-bar ritardando. Say follows a pounding accompaniment with a phrase of sudden elegance worthy of the slow movement of the “Emperor” Concerto. In Bartók’s six “Romanian Folk Dances,” Kopatchinskaja sometimes rips her pizzicati with destructive force, sometimes plucks lyrically with wonderfully expressive grace. Perhaps she doesn’t throw off Ravel’s pretty little Sonata with enough casual cool, but in Say’s 13-minute Violin Sonata, she captures all the magic of its moonlit beauty.

Turkish pianist-composer Fazil Say set the bar high for himself by aiming to deliver one of the greatest interpretations of Beethoven with this collection. It’s a bold target given the competition, but one thing you can be sure of with him is a big personality and great individuality. He is best in the more classical sonatas; in a work that fizzes with passion, like the “Waldstein”, his character chimes well with Beethoven’s message. Some of his tempi are extreme—his “Moonlight” opening movement is very slow, while the finale is full of dramatic twists and turns—but there’s no denying the force of personality behind his playing. There are many rewards along the way.

A friend of mine once likened a particularly metronomic performance of Beethoven’s Appassionata to a man being pursued by hornets. I don’t know who’s pursuing Fazil Say in the first movement, but the pianist either sounds as if he’s fleeing the very same hornets or, most probably, an irate music critic. Say tears through the movement without modifying his fleet basic tempo, yet he somehow conveys the drama and disquiet implied by Beethoven’s frequent dynamic changes, abetted by added bass-note octaves (measures 130-33). However, the Andante con moto is not so much about a unified set of variations as it is about Fazil Say the interpretive graffiti artist.

With a repertoire heavily centered on twentieth and twenty first century composers, Patricia Kopatchinskaja definitely does not play your grandmother's Beethoven. Actually, the first-movement Presto of her performance of the Op. 47 sonata is downright startling at first. Extremely aggressive and energetic, Kopatchinskaja's playing lives up to her stated desire to perform Beethoven in a more "excessive manner." Despite the initially jarring verticality of her playing, the spontaneity and excitement that she brings to the "Kreutzer" Sonata is quickly engaging and infectious.

Angela Hewitt is rapidly establishing herself as one of the great pianists of our age, her concert career expanding as rapidly as her discography, so it seems only right that, following her success in tackling one of the pillars of classical music in Bach, she should tackle another in Beethoven. This volume commences a survey of Beethoven sonatas which will couple the well known, in this case the ‘Appassionata’, with the comparatively neglected, here the grandest of Beethoven’s early sonatas, his Op 7. The disc is completed with a superb performance of Op 10/3, one of the early sonatas where Beethoven can be seen breaking the bounds of convention to create the style which would define the great works of his middle period.