Ludwig Van Beethoven Complete Works

Een driedubbele cd met het integrale werk voor cello en pianoforte van Ludwig Van Beethoven, dat is het resultaat van de intense muzikale samenwerking van celliste France Springuel en pianist Jan Vermeulen. De twee begonnen drie jaar geleden samen te musiceren en de muzikale klik die beiden toen voelden, deed hen besluiten om het repertoire voor cello en piano aan te pakken. Eerst waren er twee Schubertcd's, dan volgde Schumann, en nu is er dus Beethoven. De sonate voor cello en piano is in feite een uitvinding van Beethoven zelf.

In 1819 the Viennese music publisher and composer Anton Diabelli sent a short waltz to a long list of composers. These included Schubert, Hummel, a very young Franz Liszt and, as the most prominent composer of the time, naturally Beethoven. Diabelli was proposing to compile an anthology of variations on his own waltz, one from each composer. Beethoven responded in a characteristic manner: first there was nothing, and then there was nothing … and then, in 1823, there was an entire, and monumental, set of no less than thirty-three variations.

If the 32 piano sonatas and the great works in variation form (Eroica, Diabelli) form the weightiest part of Beethoven's legacy to pianists and lovers of piano music, they by no means tell the full story. In his highly acclaimed survey of the complete music for solo piano, Ronald Brautigam has previously recorded the early, unnumbered sonatas, the Bagatelles and the earlier sets of variations. He now treats us to a disc of rondos and piano pieces, spanning from one of the very earliest surviving works – a Rondo in C major composed by a 13-year old Beethoven – to what is often referred to as the composer's ‘Last Musical Thought’, an Andante maestoso in C major.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s first printed work was a set of variations – published in 1783 when he was only twelve years old – and his final keyboard composition was the massive set of thirty-three variations on a theme by Anton Diabelli, composed almost four decades later. Not counting the several movements in variation form included in the sonatas, his twenty-one sets of piano variations thus trace a line of development in his production, parallel to those formed by the 32 piano sonatas or the 16 string quartets.

After eight discs with the 32 numbered sonatas, and a ninth comprising the early sonatas and sonatinas, Ronald Brautigam now embarks on the second leg of his traversal of Beethoven’s complete music for solo piano. In this volume he gives us the complete Bagatelles, and includes not only the three sets published during Beethoven’s life time, but also thirteen further pieces composed throughout Beethoven’s career, between 1795 and 1825. Some of these pieces, most famously ‘Für Elise’, are sometimes referred to as Bagatelles, others simply as Klavierstücke and several of them are only known by their tempo markings.

The complete works of Beethoven on 85 CDs plus a supplement particularly outstanding recordings of the past on 15 CDs!
Including the 32 legendary piano sonatas, played by the eccentric talent of the century Friedrich Gulda

The pellucid tone and refined technique of Yo-Yo Ma and the passionate interpretations and flashy virtuosity of Mischa Maisky have defined the poles of post-Rostropovich cello playing. In contrast, Heinrich Schiff may seem reserved to the point of being unemotional and self-effacing to the point of disappearing altogether. But as his 1998 recording of Beethoven's complete works for cello and piano with Till Fellner demonstrate, Schiff is every bit as accomplished as Ma and Maisky.

In eight previous volumes Ronald Brautigam has traversed what is often called 'The New Testament of Piano Music', namely Beethoven's 32 numbered sonatas. The present disc may be regarded as an appendix to these, as it explores the composer's first attempts in the genre. It opens with the three Kurfürsten Sonatas from 1783, in which Beethoven - at the tender age of twelve - demonstrates a remarkable maturity.