Yet Another "Complete Beethoven"

[Ricardo Jimenez]

This one claims to be the "Complete Piano Works." It is by Martino
Tirimo and like the recent Levit and Say complete sonatas is on
Spotify. A reviewer with the handle "Firebrand" on Amazon says in his
review of Say's set:

"It is a curious coincidence that Say’s Beethoven cycle has hit the
market in the same three month period (winter 2019-2020) as the
Beethoven cycles of Igor Levit (my review of that one, a very
interesting mixed bag, is posted) and Martino Tirimo. Of these three,
I find Levit’s and Say’s Beethoven to both tend toward the quick,
nervous and youthful, while Tirimo’s bigger, more expansive style is
more in line with how I prefer to hear these works."

I have only got up to the Waldstein in the Levit set and find what I
have heard so far exhilarating.

[Mark Zimmer]

The reviews of the Levit set on Amazon are all over the place. The most thoughtful one finds him rushing and sloppy half the time, and excellent the other half; others say it's the best set of LvB sonatas ever. I'll be interested to hear your impressions as you work through the set.

The Tirimo set looks interesting--"Bigger, more expansive" fits my notion of Beethoven too.

Mark

[Not a Dentist]

Having not heard a single note yet, I can report that the Tirimo set differs from all others by including - in presumably chronological order - ALL of the piano works, including unpublished sonatas and all of the variations, plus fantasies, bagatelles, etc. This explains why it takes 16 CDs.

[Not a Dentist]

Expansive, and expensive, if you buy the online version. iTunes sells it for $159.99, although the Amazon price for the CDs is just $42 and change.

[Not a Dentist]

Another one appears TOMORROW!

https://www.amazon.com/32-Sonatas-Konstantin-Lifschitz/dp/B082PQKG3B/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Lifschitz+beethoven&qid=1581623435&sr=8-1

[Bozo]

John Elliot Gardner,apparently from the NYT recently (? ) , courtesy another group.He and his orchestra do all the symphonies next week at Carnegie, then elsewhere :


"....My earliest memories of Beethoven’s symphonies are as a teenager, listening to old LPs. My parents had Furtwängler and Karajan recordings. And I remember finding the Karajan recordings brilliant and electric, but somehow a bit too slick and slightly distasteful, whereas I found the Furtwängler recordings more enlightening and a lot more profound.

I also remember feeling that this surely couldn’t be the only way of performing or interpreting this music. It felt a little gargantuan, a little inflated. I was longing for a cleaner, leaner sound, and I eventually found that in Toscanini. There was far greater visceral excitement to the interpretations, a gripping clarity, transparency and rhythmic zest ....

I don’t think Beethoven needs an anniversary to be played a lot. I’m sure he doesn’t. But if we are going to go with this 250th anniversary, we must be very, very sure that we have something — and that he has something — to say to us now in 2020 that is pertinent to the way we look at life, society and culture. I definitely feel this to be the case. There are clear parallels between his situation in the early 1800s and ours today, between the political agitation and rebelliousness that he felt, the discomfort that he expressed in his symphonies, and the situation in which we now find ourselves.

The danger is that these pieces become over-familiar and lose their impact if they continue to be played only in an all-purpose, generic early-to-mid-20th-century style that’s no different than Wagner or Strauss. Maybe it’s a paradox that through the attempt to reconstruct Beethoven’s own ideal, imaginary orchestra, it brings his music closer into our present world. But I firmly believe that that is the case. A listener attending our performances will, I hope, hear greater clarity, greater transparency, greater rhetoric, a greater sense of excitement, freshness and ebullience. All of those things."

[Mark Zimmer]

The Tirimo set seems to include most everything for solo piano with either an opus number or a WoO number; they don't venture into the Hess or Biamonti catalogues for more off-the-beaten-track things.

Mark

[Me]

On Thursday, February 13, 2020 at 2:55:08 PM UTC-5, Not a Dentist wrote:
> Another one appears TOMORROW!
>
> https://www.amazon.com/32-Sonatas-Konstantin-Lifschitz/dp/B082PQKG3B/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Lifschitz+beethoven&qid=1581623435&sr=8-1

I listened to CD 01 tonight. This is some superb Beethoven. Individual but not eccentric, passionate but not over the top, powerful but still classical, confident but not reckless. His style is an amalgam of Backhaus, Schnabel and Richter.

George

[Ricardo Jimenez]

OK, I added it to my Spotify list. I finished Levit and have Say,
Tirimo and Lifschitz to go. I'll listen to each about a month or so
apart in order to keep my sanity :-) Has anybody here ever tried to
avoid listening to Beethoven for an extended period?

[wkasimer]

On Friday, February 21, 2020 at 9:30:19 AM UTC-5, Ricardo Jimenez wrote:

> OK, I added it to my Spotify list. I finished Levit and have Say,
> Tirimo and Lifschitz to go. I'll listen to each about a month or so

> apart in order to keep my sanity :-).

I've been listening to one sonata at a time, alternating between the four sets.

[ro...@verizon.net]

Has anybody here ever tried to avoid listening to Beethoven for an extended period?

Yes, sometimes I find I must take a break from Beethoven. I don't know if a 3-4 week break qualifies as an extended period. He has a way of staying in my head like no other composer. That's not necessarily a bad thing but sometimes I feel I need to escape his grip. It's a mystery to me how his music affects me in this way or how it still feels inexhaustible after all these years.

When I started exploring classical music I purposefully avoided Beethoven; I was intimidated by all that I heard about him and I was afraid his music would be beyond my understanding. I finally gave in and bought the 5th and 7th symphonies and I was immediately sucked in. After 30 years of listening his music still seems fresh to me.

My palate cleansers for Beethoven are Bach and Haydn.

[Ricardo Jimenez]

Great. You are then in a much better position to give us a
comparative assessment than I am. What do yu think so far?

[wkasimer]

On Friday, February 21, 2020 at 1:52:15 PM UTC-5, Ricardo Jimenez wrote:

> >I've been listening to one sonata at a time, alternating between the four sets.
>
> Great. You are then in a much better position to give us a
> comparative assessment than I am. What do yu think so far?

I'm still on Op. 2. So far, Lifschitz is the most assertive and bold, Say the most lyrical and elegant. Haven't really made up my mind about Tirimo and Levit.

Be warned that Say makes a lot of extramusical, Gouldish noises.

[AB]

you mean 'ghoulish'?

AB