Beethoven: Piano Sonatas & Variations

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The Ecossaises suddenly break free from the chilly discipline, and blossom delightfully… The recording is at once deep and clear. — Gramophone Magazine, March 1958 More…

Release Date: 2nd Jun 2017
Catalogue No: ELQ4827053
Label: Eloquence
Length: 2 hours 27 minutes

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Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 4 in E flat major, Op. 7

Work length24:40

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1960-08
Recording Venue: Beethovensaal, Hannover

1. Allegro molto e con brio

Track length6:12

2. Largo, con gran espressione

Track length6:24

3. Allegro

Track length5:33

4. Rondo (Poco allegretto e grazioso)

Track length6:31

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 6 in F major, Op. 10 No. 2

Work length10:44

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1957-11-07
Recording Venue: Beethovensaal, Hannover

1. Allegro

Track length4:17

2. Allegretto

Track length3:45

3. Presto

Track length2:42

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 9 in E major, Op. 14 No. 1

Work length11:29

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1960-08
Recording Venue: Beethovensaal, Hannover

1. Allegro

Track length4:51

2. Allegretto

Track length3:24

3. Rondo (Allegro comodo)

Track length3:14

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 19 in G minor, Op. 49 No. 1

Work length8:03

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1960-02
Recording Venue: Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin

1. Andante

Track length4:30

2. Rondo (Allegro)

Track length3:33

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110

Work length18:15

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1960-04
Recording Venue: Kulturraum, Bamberg

1. Moderato cantabile molto espressivo

Track length6:12

2. Allegro molto

Track length2:05

3. Adagio ma non troppo - Fuga (Allegro ma non troppo)

Track length9:58

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 24 in F-Sharp, Op. 78 "For Therese"

Work length8:05

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1960-02
Recording Venue: Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin

1. Adagio cantabile - Allegro ma non troppo

Track length4:57

2. Allegro vivace

Track length3:08

Beethoven: Für Elise (Bagatelle in A minor, WoO59)

Work length3:41

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1957-05-19
Recording Venue: Musikhalle, Grosser Saal, Hamburg

Beethoven: Bagatelles (6), Op. 126

Work length18:25

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1957-05-19
Recording Venue: Musikhalle, Grosser Saal, Hamburg

1. Andante con moto

Track length3:00

2. Allegro

Track length3:09

3. Andante

Track length2:15

4. Presto

Track length4:00

5. Quasi Allegretto

Track length2:18

6. Presto - Andante amabile e con moto

Track length3:43

Beethoven: Ecossaise in E flat major, WoO 86

Work length2:20

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1957-05-19
Recording Venue: Musikhalle, Grosser Saal, Hamburg

Beethoven: Andante Favori in F, WoO 57

Work length8:37

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1957-05-19
Recording Venue: Musikhalle, Grosser Saal, Hamburg

Beethoven: Variations (32) on an Original Theme in C minor, WoO 80

Work length10:46

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1955-07-06
Recording Venue: Beethovensaal, Hannover

32 Piano Variations In C Minor On An Original Theme, WoO 80

Track length10:46

Beethoven: Two Rondos, Op. 51

Work length14:38

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1959-01-11
Recording Venue: Beethovensaal, Hannover

Moderato e grazioso

Track length5:42

Andante cantabile e grazioso

Track length8:56

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 25 in G major, Op. 79

Work length8:09

Andor Foldes (piano)
Recorded: 1958-12
Recording Venue: Beethovensaal, Hannover

1. Presto alla tedesca

Track length3:05

2. Andante

Track length3:05

3. Vivace

Track length1:59

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About

One of three complementary albums which celebrate the art of the Hungarian pianist Andor Foldes in the music of Beethoven, this Eloquence release pairs an eventful journey through the composer’s sonatas with his excursions into shorter and lighter repertoire.

Taken by itself, the release would serve as an ideal introduction to Beethoven’s piano music. Foldes was renowned for his no-frills pianism, just as the composer was known in his own time for lessons which did not fuss about a dropped note here or there but concentrated on expression and direct communication. These are the qualities already to be prized in the Op. 7 Sonata, written five years after Beethoven’s decisive move from Bonn to Vienna but still bursting with the exuberance of his 20s.

At the other end of the composer’s career, the release presents Beethoven at his most puzzling and confrontational in the Op. 126 Bagatelles – the briefest of which lasts barely ten seconds – and at his most searching in his penultimate Sonata, Op. 110.

The Ecossaises and little-known Rondos present a lighter, more carefree side to Beethoven, and his best-known work for piano, Für Elise, shares a tenderness with the more profound slow movement which he had intended to use for the ‘Waldstein’ Sonata but eventually let stand alone as the Andante favori.

Foldes made these recordings over four years at the end of the 1950s, when he was invited across the world to perform the Classical masters which he had most loved since the beginning of his prodigious career: he had performed the First and Fourth concertos in public by the age of eleven. He was a diligent and sober recording artist, as his Beethoven series for Deutsche Grammophon exemplifies.

Reviews

March 1958

The Ecossaises suddenly break free from the chilly discipline, and blossom delightfully… The recording is at once deep and clear.

November 1959

Foldes has quite wonderful technique. It is impossible to think of his ever playing strings of wrong notes; one could more easily believe his last wrong note occurred in 1949, so assured does he sound. His playing is beautifully clean.

Offer,Beethoven: Piano Sonatas & Variations

2 CDs

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