Pianophilia

fredbucket wrote:

passthesalt wrote:Oh gawd ... I used to have the first volume of the Schnabel edition but my dog, Nelly, chewed it into a great pile of looseleaf pages with big bitemarks on them.

Obviously done during an appassionistic and pathetique fit in the moonlight during a tempest. I didn't realise the weather was that bad in Texas...

Regards
Fred

Actually it was right after Nelly had said Adieu to the Charlotte, North Carolina, dog jail where she had been a guest of the county for 2 weeks for nipping (accidentally) the mailman (who had no sense of humor at all).

For those of you who did not notice, the lo-res scans of the first editions of Beethoven from the Beethoven-Haus website are now available at the IMSLP. Lots of manuscripts, too. I have uploaded them on cosandscores.com as well.
Happy Silvester to all and have a great 2010!

Thanks a lot for the info much more practical than going to the Haus website... which was practically difficult to use.
While I am on the thread, a question tough .

"On the proper performance of all beethoven work Op 500" by Czerny has been circulating on the web for a while

the german edition is OK [ but I dont read german] the english translation [ at least the file I have] misses pages [ p 56 for eg]
Does anybody have the english version in full...? or at the very least p56...?
Thanks and happy new year
JF

The June 2010 BBC Music magazine quotes Martin Roscoe (who's recording all of Beethoven's sonatas) saying that Beethoven's Pastoral Sonata, Op 28, deserved "to be better known," which got me thinking about Beethoven sonatas that are worthy, but rarely programmed. I agree with Roscoe's nomination of the Pastoral and off the top of my head would add Op 27, No 1.

Does anyone else have a sonata they'd nominate as deserves-to-be-played-more-often?

I'm also interested in opinions on why some of these infrequently played sonatas remain more obscure. Is it because they aren't as virtuosic as the better-known sonatas?

passthesalt wrote:I'm also interested in opinions on why some of these infrequently played sonatas remain more obscure. Is it because they aren't as virtuosic as the better-known sonatas?

Presumably because they don't put bums on seats. Perhaps a sonata needs a nickname to get popular? Personally I agree with Tovey's sentiment that the op28 is "poetic, but on the whole about as pastoral as Jane Austen".

My favourite is the op110, which is probably the least virtuosic his later sonatas.

Regards
Fred

passthesalt wrote:The June 2010 BBC Music magazine quotes Martin Roscoe (who's recording all of Beethoven's sonatas) saying that Beethoven's Pastoral Sonata, Op 28, deserved "to be better known," which got me thinking about Beethoven sonatas that are worthy, but rarely programmed. I agree with Roscoe's nomination of the Pastoral and off the top of my head would add Op 27, No 1.

Does anyone else have a sonata they'd nominate as deserves-to-be-played-more-often?

I'm also interested in opinions on why some of these infrequently played sonatas remain more obscure. Is it because they aren't as virtuosic as the better-known sonatas?

Interesting topic !
I personally can't imagine, which of Beethoven's sonatas would NOT be worthy to be played often.

The sonata that I find much under-rated (btw in matters of difficulty, too), is op. 90. When you get deeper into the piece, you will notice, that it actually is a "late sonata", no more a middle-age one, like Les Adieux might still be.

A very good, but also difficult piece is op. 2 No 2.

Rarely played, but one of my favourites:
op. 54

I've always had a 'special place' for the Op. 27/1. It may not have the instant dramatic appeal of its sibling, but in many ways it's just as worthy.

Op. XXXIX wrote:I've always had a 'special place' for the Op. 27/1. It may not have the instant dramatic appeal of its sibling, but in many ways it's just as worthy.

Agreed! The last movement of this sonata is absolutely superb.

I vote for the first sonata... I think it is a marvel, especially the second movement.

Parag