Beethoven Pollini Piano Sonatas 30 31

8 CDs, Capbox. Maurizio Pollini's Beethoven Sonatas cycle has reached completion after nearly 40 years. The Beethoven cycle began in June 1975 with opp. 109 and 110, and reached completion this year with the final CD, of the three sonatas op. 31 and the two of op. 49. This latter recording will appear as a single CD simultaneously with the box set. This is the first Beethoven cycle on DG since those of Barenboim and Giles in the 1980s.

8 CDs, Capbox. Maurizio Pollini's Beethoven Sonatas cycle has reached completion after nearly 40 years. The Beethoven cycle began in June 1975 with opp. 109 and 110, and reached completion this year with the final CD, of the three sonatas op. 31 and the two of op. 49. This latter recording will appear as a single CD simultaneously with the box set. This is the first Beethoven cycle on DG since those of Barenboim and Giles in the 1980s.

Pollini's performances of Beethoven's last five piano sonatas have assumed almost legendary status. Sometimes considered a cold interpreter, Pollini here pays scrupulous attention to Beethoven's instructions, an attention that never gets in the way of sincere expression. There's a lot to be said for approaching this music with a maximum of clarity and simplicity, and a minimum of Romantic panting and heaving. In fact, Beethoven's instructions are so detailed, and the music itself is often so elaborately developed, that it's all most pianists can do to play it as he wrote it. Pollini does that, and much more.

In anticipation of his 75th birthday in 2017, this luxurious 55-CD set presents Pollini's complete recordings on DG with their original covers, including the first ever release of Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto with the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Maxim Shostakovich (recorded in 1974). Also included are a 200-page booklet and 3 bonus DVDs: concerto recordings with Böhm and Abbado as well as Bruno Monsaingeon's documentary film De main de maître (2015).

Claudio Arrau was past his prime when, in the mid-1980s, he offered these final thoughts on the late sonatas, but he was still a sovereign interpreter, with a sense of line and grasp of form few other exponents of this music have possessed in comparable degree. Where an interpreter like Pollini emphasizes the energy in Beethoven’s writing for the piano, Arrau conveys its mass, giving these sonatas a symphonic treatment.

Earlier this year Maurizio Pollini, one of the greatest pianists of our time, celebrated his 80th birthday. Having made landmark recordings of Beethoven’s final five sonatas in the 1970s, he decided a few years ago to revisit the works and elicit their last secrets in new interpretations. Featuring the Sonata in A major Op. 101 and the “Hammerklavier” Sonata Op. 106, this album completes Pollini’s recent survey of the five works, which began with the successful 2020 release of Beethoven – The Last Three Sonatas.

Winning first prize at the 1989 Van Cliburn Competition, Alexei Sultanov enjoyed a meteoric rise of epic proportions, with a major recording contract, Carnegie Hall recital, American and European tours, and TV appearances with Johnny Carson, David Letterman, and other notables. But Sultanov's star soon fell to Earth as critics would often characterize his bold style in unflattering terms, finding his interpretive manner feral and superficial, and his herculean fortes ostentatious: he broke a string during a performance of the Liszt First Mephisto Waltz at the Cliburn Competition. But the youthful pianist's health soon proved a more formidable opponent than any critic's pen, as a series of strokes sabotaged his career, eventually leaving him paralyzed on his left side after 2001. Though he died at 35, Sultanov left a memorable though controversial legacy. His Prokofiev, Chopin, Rachmaninov, and Scriabin could rivet the listener, while his Beethoven and Mozart might have been less consistently engaging. His recordings, mostly available from Warner Classics, document the enormous talent of this imaginative performer, a pianist unafraid to take interpretive chances.

In anticipation of his 75th birthday in 2017, this luxurious 55-CD set presents Pollini's complete recordings on DG with their original covers, including the first ever release of Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto with the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Maxim Shostakovich (recorded in 1974). Also included are a 200-page booklet and 3 bonus DVDs: concerto recordings with Böhm and Abbado as well as Bruno Monsaingeon's documentary film De main de maître (2015).