Release Date: 14 April 2017
Label: Odradek Records
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 0855317003493
Genres: Classical Solo Instrumental
Description
I have chosen Beethoven's Diabelli Variations – more "transformations" than variations – quite simply because I could not do otherwise. They are necessary to me – vital.
After playing his 32 Sonatas, it seemed to me essential, but also natural, to meet a new challenge with him, to enjoy another great journey in his company; one could say, another "initiation". This monumental Op. 120 concentrates many of the difficulties I have experienced with the sonatas, but its language has become more and more familiar over the years.
Not only did I want to play Beethoven's Diabelli to experience, once more, a cathartic encounter through the pinnacle of his art, but also because I love them more than anything! When starting the purely instrumental work on the Diabelli, I did not realise that what seemed the least difficult was in fact incredibly complex to render, and all the things that seemed relatively "simple" were key to the interpretation. I worked out the pianistic aspects long before other parameters, themselves so complex, so that the whole edifice remains coherent, according to my personal experience with Beethoven and my own personality.
I first confronted the structural aspects based on the Golden Section which is fundamental to the unity of these variations. For example, how long must we wait –or not– between one variation and another? Polyphony requires great independence from each finger and extremely accurate fingering, not to mention pedal work which in some cases becomes structural. Beethoven is wonderfully creative when transforming the original material, but never gives up on the idea, sometimes veering towards baroque or conversely, towards the impalpability of certain 20th- century works. I have come to realise how each variation seems miles away from its predecessor whilst remaining closely related to its core. Each of them caused me some reflex problems regarding the speed of change in terms of writing, colour, pianistic difficulty and sound! But work on the diversity of expression as well as the harsh, poignant but also contemplative and joyful sides was a daily source of immeasurable pleasure.
I am grateful to have rubbed shoulders with a superior being, the macrocosm of Beethoven's spirituality which makes me as a musician always in search of the absolute. An ocean of humanity which allows me to touch the sky!
Tracklisting
Nuno Côrte-Real, Ensemble Darcos & Coro Ricercare
Artur Pizarro, Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal, Julia Jones
Ingibjorg Azima
Jenaer Philharmonie, Simon Gaudenz
Carion Wind Quintet
Johannes Fleischmann
Tony Addison Sextet
Vasco Pimentel Trio
Muriel Chemin
