Beethoven - Piano Sonatas Volume 2 - Harmonia Mundi: HMC901903/05 - download

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Paul Lewis is a serious artist, and the quality of his playing, beautifully captured by Harmonia Mundi's engineers, is of a very high standard throughout. Particularly fine is the Waldstein... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2006, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 30th Oct 2006
Catalogue No: HMC901903/05
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Series: Paul Lewis Beethoven
Length: 3 hours 26 minutes

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December 2006

Disc of the Month

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 'Pathetique'

Work length20:32

$3.20

$4.00

I. Grave - Allegro di molto e con brio

Track length9:48

$1.20

$1.50

II. Andante cantabile

Track length5:23

$1.00

$1.25

III. Rondo. Allegro

Track length5:21

$1.00

$1.25

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 11 in B flat major, Op. 22

Work length25:13

$4.40

$5.50

I. Allegro con brio

Track length7:39

$1.20

$1.50

II. Adagio con molto espressione

Track length7:18

$1.20

$1.50

III. Tempo di Menuetto

Track length3:25

$1.00

$1.25

IV. Rondo. Allegretto

Track length6:51

$1.00

$1.25

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101

Work length22:10

$3.40

$4.25

I. Allegretto ma non troppo

Track length4:03

$1.00

$1.25

II. Vivace alla marcia

Track length6:41

$1.00

$1.25

III. Adagio ma non troppo con affetto - IV. Allegro ma non troppo

Track length11:26

$1.40

$1.75

Beethoven: Sonate No. 9 en Mi majeur, Op. 14 No. 1

Work length14:08

$3.20

$4.00

I. Allegro

Track length7:03

$1.20

$1.50

II. Allegretto

Track length3:26

$1.00

$1.25

III. Rondo. Allegro commodo

Track length3:39

$1.00

$1.25

Beethoven: Sonate No. 10 en Sol majeur, Op. 14 No. 2

Work length17:04

$3.20

$4.00

I. Allegro

Track length7:50

$1.20

$1.50

II. Andante

Track length5:06

$1.00

$1.25

III. Scherzo. Allegro assai

Track length4:08

$1.00

$1.25

Beethoven: Sonate No. 24 en Fa dièse majeur, Op. 78

Work length10:29

$2.20

$2.75

I. Allegro ma non troppo

Track length7:19

$1.20

$1.50

II. Allegro vivace

Track length3:10

$1.00

$1.25

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53 'Waldstein'

Work length26:54

$3.80

$4.75

I. Allegro con brio

Track length11:27

$1.40

$1.75

II. Introduzione

Track length4:35

$1.00

$1.25

III. Rondo

Track length10:52

$1.40

$1.75

Beethoven: Sonate No. 27 en mi mineur, Op. 90

Work length14:13

$2.20

$2.75

I. Allegro

Track length5:46

$1.00

$1.25

II. Rondo

Track length8:27

$1.20

$1.50

Beethoven: Sonate No. 25 "Alla tedesca" en Sol majeur, Op. 79

Work length10:13

$3.00

$3.75

I. Presto alla tedesca

Track length5:30

$1.00

$1.25

II. Andante

Track length2:33

$1.00

$1.25

III. Vivace

Track length2:10

$1.00

$1.25

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106 'Hammerklavier'

Work length45:50

Album only

I. Allegro

Track length11:39

$1.40

$1.75

II. Scherzo

Track length2:48

$1.00

$1.25

III. Adagio sostenuto

Track length18:31

Album only

IV. Largo - Allegro risoluto

Track length12:52

$1.40

$1.75

About
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Volume 2 of Paul Lewis's complete Beethoven cycle on Harmonia Mundi includes scintillating accounts of both the Pathétique and the Hammerklavier.

Reviews

November 2006

Paul Lewis is a serious artist, and the quality of his playing, beautifully captured by Harmonia Mundi's engineers, is of a very high standard throughout. Particularly fine is the Waldstein Sonata… a performance that can stand comparison with the very best. His Hammerklavier is tremendously impressive, leaving us in no doubt of the music's weight and grandeur.

2010

Throughout all 10 sonatas Lewis's unswerving authority thinly veils his profound immersion in the very wellspring of Beethoven's creative genius. Even the composer's relatively carefree or lightweight gestures are invested with a drama and significance that illuminate them in a novel but wholly natural light. Here is one of those rare pianists who can charge even a single note or momentary pause with drama and significance and convince you, for example, that his lyrical, often darkly introspective way with Beethoven's pulsing con brio brilliance in the Waldstein Sonata is a viable, indeed, memorable alternative to convention.
So, too, is his way with the Hammerklavier, that most daunting of masterpieces, where he tells us that even when the composer is at his most elemental he remains deeply human and vulnerable.
Not for him Schnabel's headlong attempt to obey Beethoven's wild first-movement metronome mark; nor does he view the vast spans of the Adagio as 'like the icy heart of some remote mountain lake' (JWN Sullivan) but rather a place of ineffable sadness. And here as elsewhere he is able to relish every detail of the composer's ever-expanding argument while maintaining a flawless sense of line and continuity.
Faced with such excellence a mere critic can only abandon paper and pencil and listen to this heroic but deeply moving young artist with awe and amazement. These are early days but Paul Lewis's superbly recorded and presented Beethoven may well turn out to be the most musicianly and ultimately satisfying of all recorded Beethoven piano sonata cycles.

1st December 2006

The Waldstein here is particularly fine, conceived in a single coherent musical span with meticulous marking of every dynamic contrast; Lewis's quiet playing is a particular joy...This is already becoming a Beethoven cycle to reckon with.

Beethoven - Piano Sonatas Volume 2

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