Beethoven - Complete Pianos Sonatas

Friedrich Gulda

Orfeo C808 109L Buy now

Beethoven Complete Pianos Sonatas. Eroica Variations. Diabelli Variations. Six Bagatelles, Op 126
Friedrich Gulda pf

Few distinguished artists of the recent past have been the subject of more “first-release” radio recordings on CD than the late Friedrich Gulda, thanks to the efforts of such enterprising labels as Orfeo, Audite, Hänssler and andante.com. Orfeo’s nine-disc set of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas (plus the Eroica and Diabelli Variations, and the Bagatelles Op 126, all from 1957) is no mere duplication of what we already have. Indeed, this 1953-54 Austrian Radio sonata cycle falls almost exactly midway between the constituent parts of the Gulda cycle that Decca issued on LP and subsequently reissued as an 11-disc set in its “Original Masters” series. Oddly enough the first point of contrast to hit home, specifically in the early sonatas, is the enormous superiority of Orfeo’s recordings, which are clearer, better focused and generally far more listenable than their Decca counterparts. As to the performances, I would cite in particular the slow movement of Op 7 which has greater breadth than on the 1957 Decca stereo recording (Gulda’s Amadeo version was swifter even than the Decca), and where the poise and pacing are, to my ears, pretty close to perfect. The first movement of the Decca Moonlight, infamous in its day, swims in a sea of sustain pedal, an effect that Gulda hadn’t yet hit upon in the early Fifties, much to my relief. The Tempest, Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas are startlingly red-blooded (the Waldstein’s first movement in particular is charged with an unusually high level of nervous energy) and the later sonatas capture that almost inexpressible combination of physical confrontation and spiritual engagement that only the greatest Beethovenians can muster. Gulda was always at his best in the last three sonatas but his Decca Hammerklavier, for all its trimness and brilliance, rarely matches this one for impact, while the later Diabelli, although hugely energetic where needs be, is less relentless than Gulda’s airless later recording which made a brief appearance here on a Harmonia Mundi CD. Gulda could charm, too, and I would challenge anyone to find a more lyrical reading of the G major Sonata Op 14 No 2, save perhaps Gulda’s 1959 radio recording recently put out on Audite. It is hardly credible that all this interpretative accomplishment was achieved by a pianist who, at the time, was still only in his early twenties, and who would subsequently divide his musical activities between the Viennese classics and varieties of jazz. There are certain records that seem to capture the very moment when a fledgling virtuoso first confronts a great corpus of musical work, and this marvellous set represents such a confrontation. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Rob Cowan