Release Date: 09 June 2017
Label: Australian Eloquence
Packaging Type: Brilliant Case (Jewel Case size, Holds 2 CDs)
No of Units: 2
Barcode: 0028948270538
Genres: Classical Solo Instrumental
Description
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.
'The Ecossaises suddenly break free from the chilly discipline, and blossom delightfully… The recording is at once deep and clear.' Gramophone, March 1958
'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.' Gramophone, November 1959 (Rondos)
Also available from Eloquence with Andor Foldes:
ELQ4825854 Beethoven: Sonatas
ELQ4827048 Beethoven: Piano Concertos 1 & 5
Tracklisting
Josef Krips; Various Orchestras
Josef Krips
Neville Marriner; ASMF
New Vienna Octet, Vienna Wind Soloists
Wiener Oktett
John Mauceri; The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; Julie Andrews
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt; LSO; Alfred Brendel
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt; VPO; LSO; Sutherland; Backhaus
Backhaus, Foldes, Anda – Hans Knappertsbusch
