Beethoven Piano Concerto

Guiomar Novaes' life story has been the stuff of legend in the classical world for decades and this CD is clear evidence why none other than Claude Debussy himself helped single her out for greatness as a teenage prodigy. Recorded when she was in her 50's, she's absolutely stupendous, pulling off difficult passage after passage with fabulous effortlessness, her trademark. But forget the 'feminine piano' tag that has been given to her at times, this CD shows she can bring on the 'thunder and lightning' whenever necessary. Thanks to Vox Box Legends for this magnificent digitally mastered 2 CD set, the wonderful sound, and very detailed, extensive liner notes that put most other liner notes to shame.

Today, it’s hard to fathom the worldwide sensation sparked by Van Cliburn’s victory in the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. An American pianist winning a prestigious Russian event at the height of the Cold War made headlines everywhere and the two rival superpowers took the young Texan to their hearts, with a tickertape parade in Manhattan and frequent, sold-out tours of the Soviet Union by Cliburn during the following years. VAI has secured the original Russian television tapes of some of those concerts; this first of the series is from the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in 1962, with the excellent Kirill Kondrashin leading the Moscow Philharmonic. The formal program was made up of two of the most popular concertos in the repertory. The Beethoven Emperor Concerto features Cliburn’s big, bold tone and exquisite phrasing; his magisterial entrance is riveting and the meaningful trills Beethoven sprinkled throughout the work are done with pristine exactitude. The Tchaikovsky Concerto–Cliburn’s signature piece–is even better; the massive opening chords thrilling, ample poetry in the slow movement and, as in the Beethoven, truly stunning legato playing. Also worthy are the two encores–Chopin’s Fantasy in F minor, given with a mixture of power and poetry, and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12, brimming with excitement and pianistic mastery.

Celebrated pianist and renowned Beethoven specialist Rudolf Buchbinder releases his second album with Deutsche Grammophon following his exclusive contract with the label in 2019. The album captures a breath taking live performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 1. from 2016 between Buchbinder, his long time friend Christian Thielemann , and the Berlin Philharmonics. This does not only represent the first DG release with Christian Thielemann and the Berlin Philharmonics but also celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary this year. The album is completed with Beethoven’s six variations for piano op. 34 recorded in August 2019, which is also when Buchbinder recorded his successful Diabelli Variations.

Leif Ove Andsnes has treated his survey of the piano concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven as a journey of musical and historical significance, and this final CD in the series presents the Piano Concert No. 5 in E flat major (shorn of its nickname, "Emperor"), and the Choral Fantasy in C minor as a destination. It is Andsnes' position that the Fifth Piano Concerto was intended by Beethoven to be an act of defiance against Napoleon, so the work is not a glorification of imperial aims, but the opposite. Similarly, the concerto-like Choral Fantasy is an expression of liberation from oppression, and a musical declaration of Beethoven's humanist values.

In 2015, pianist Jonathan Biss initiated the Beethoven/5 commissioning project with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and more than fifteen other orchestras, resulting in a groundbreaking collaboration over nine years. The project yielded five extraordinary new piano works by some of today's most significant composers, responding to Beethoven's own concerti. Volume Three sees Timo Andres’s third piano concerto, which takes its title from “Schubertiana,” by the Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer, and envisions a “blind banister that finds its way in the darkness.” As his banister, Timo Andres seizes on the cadenza Beethoven wrote for the first movement of the Second Concerto.

Paramax Films captured the concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at its resident venue of Charles Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv in July 2015 conducted by Zubin Mehta and starring Georgian concert pianist Khatia Buniatishvili. The film showcases a performance of the piano’s most famous orchestral repertoire; Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 1 and Liszt’s virtuosic Piano Concerto No 2 with its waves of sound.