PRE-ORDER: This item will be shipped with the aim to deliver on release day.
Release Date: 07 March 2025
Label: EPR-Classic
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 0608917725520
Genres: Classical Solo Instrumental
Description
With his second disc, Cristian Sandrin gives us his interpretation of Beethoven's last three Sonatas.
Once the greatness of Beethoven's output is set aside and we delve deep into the emotional essence of this music, we realise there is an abundance of expressive features that lie hidden between the lines. Beethoven wrote very precise directions, extremely advanced for his times, yet it is clear that his indications alone are certainly not enough to bring his music to life. There are so many shades of piano, as much as there are variations in the ways an artist creates the impression of crescendos, sotto voce and infinite ways in which we conceive the effect of mit inningsten Empfindung. The Beethoven's scores are rife with recurring themes, intricate motivic relations, that wait to be discovered, fragments of melodies that repeat across shorter or longer spans of music. An artist must use these recognisable elements, infuse them with a certain individual expression, to construct the narrative, a psychological journey about becoming and the multitude of tormented and life affirming emotional states that are there as part of the transformative process.
We speak of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas by comparing them with his orchestral or string quartet music. It is for this very reason that I have included Tausig's rarely played arrangement of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 13 here, in my piano solo album. I like to imagine that Beethoven composed parts of the string quartet No. 13 seated at his piano, the topography of the piano being at the very inception of these phrases intended for the strings. The middle section is reminiscent of the Arietta of his Piano Sonata in A flat major op. 110, bearing numerous similarities in the mood suggested by the key of A flat minor, similar idiosyncratic articulation instructions appear in the melody too. This short piano arrangement, Kavatine, is an epilogue to the serenity of op. 110 but is also the path leading to the unfathomable harmonies of op. 111.
Tracklisting
Brussels Philharmonic, Kazushi Ono
Verita Baroque Ensemble
Pieter Wispelwey
Verita Baroque Ensemble
Roeland Hendrikx, Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie
Pieter Wispelwey
Dionysos Now!
Cristian Sandrin
Cristian Sandrin
