Hi,

Are there 3 or 4 movements in this sonata ? Its structure may be unclear: see for instance this analysis. In some recent commercial CDs (Lubimov, Kuerti, Oppitz, Ney, Arrau, Biret, Lortie, Gould, Hungerford, Anderszewski, Oland etc.) it consists in 4 tracks (sometimes more), the third one being in most cases what I play here.

I hope you that you will not miss the fuga too much...

Didier

PS By the way, the Pianosociety link to the recording from Andy Lee does not work for me

It is dubious. But I do believe that the Adagio and Fugue do belong inseparably together, the Adagio being too short and open-ended to stand on its own.


I did. But that's just me, having a Thing about Fugues


Nope, did not work indeed. I checked, and strangely, we had no Beethoven recordings by Andy Lee on the site ! I can only think he asked us to take them off (that happens now and then) and we forgot to update the pages. Anyway I have deleted these links, they don't make sense when there are no mp3's.

Now about your recording. What gorgeous sounds again ! How I wish my recordings could sound like that. Heck, half as good would be nice already...

Despite this being a musical and considered performance, there's a number of worrying flaws which you might like to address:
- rhythmical inconsistencies (do count, especially in slow pieces !)
- occasional overpedaling
- misreadings/slips/missing notes

If you need me to be more specific I can have another listen with score tonight.

Thank you for your listening Chris. I agree that I should be closer to the score.
The 32th at the first bar should be shorter, I play a 16th. The three last quarters at bar 5 are twice too fast. But in this recitativo part, the rythm is not so well defined...
In the arioso, I noted one eighth missing at bar 10, two at bar 12, may be some other ones elsewhere.
I will do another recording.

Hi Didier, I can be a little more specific right now because I've got the score in front of me. I'm sorry, but Chris is right about the rhythmical inconsistencies.

Bars 5 and 6 - I'm really don't know how to count all those repeating notes, but they are not dotted so then they should not be played in that 'long-short' manner, but instead more even. I'm not sure if I'm correct about that; maybe someone else knows.

After that the rest of the problems are in the Arioso dolente part. Specifically at bars 2, 4,5,10, and 11. If you put your metronome on to feel the pulse in a 4/4 time, you will clearly hear that in these bars you do not get the right amount of beats. Try drawing vertical lines at each beat from the RH down to the LH so you see more visually where the beats are. This helps me sometimes. Also, your last two bars - I don't get any sense of a pulse there at all and I don't see any indication that you are supposed to slow down or anything, right?

Sorry, but we'll need this fixed up before it can go up.

This being a recitativo, I guess a performer has more leeway than usual, and maybe it need not be played exactly as written.
But that dotted rhythm sounded strange to me too. Maybe there's a precedent for it ? If some pianist from the golden age did it that way, it's probably justified....

Yes, it would be interesting to find out for sure. I'm betting that they should not be played unevenly, though.
We should get one of our Research people to check on this.

I'm sure our Resident Professor will write lengthily about it

Didier,
This is a very interesting movement by Beethoven; a very foreign language to the "usual" Beethoven. I have not played this sonata (I have the last, Op.111) but have studied it a bit. Personally, I think you started it too slowly, not capturing the "ma non troppo" coming after "Adagio." There is certainly flexibility to be exercised in the Recitativo (bar 4), and just the presence of a Recitativo certainly implies opera, and that not the ones we think of but rather the ones that Beethoven would think of, especially Baroque. It is impressive to observe how many directions Beethoven includes on this first page. Measure 5 (Adagio) includes a composed-out (realized) device common in the performance of Italian baroque vocal literature, specifically, a trillo ("a rapid measured tremolo on the same note, not to be confused with a trill") from the Italian vocal form known as gorgia. You can read more about this on p.26-27 (electronic on-line: p47-48) of Manfred Bukofzer's Music in the Baroque Era, http://www.scribd.com/doc/48190393/BUKOFZER-Manfred-%E2%80%A2-Music-in-the-Baroque-Era-From-Monteverdi-to-Bach-1947. My opinion, and I emphasize that's all it is, is this measure uses only slur lines except for two:
1. a tie from the flagged 32nd-note (sp. semifusa) to the beamed 32nd-note, and
2. a tie from the last beamed 32nd-note to the 8th note.

Anyway, I look forward to your next attempt. Think that you're a castrati wearing a nice wig!

Regards,
Eddy

Hi all,

Monica ,than you for your careful listening. I agree on missing notes in bars 2, 4 (theses ones are the ones I indicated as bars 10 and 12 with bar 1 being the first bar of what I play like in my score) and 10. I am not sure about bars 5 and 1 which seems correct to me (may be except that I speed up the tempo in bar 5 ?). Anyway I will take a lot of care for playing all the notes when redoing this recording.
I do a slight rallentendo at the end, which is not noted by Beethoven, I agree. You certainly prefer the more exact, and nonetheless so beautiful rendition from Maurizio Pollini (attached).

[quote=Chris]
Maybe there's a precedent for it ? If some pianist from the golden age did it that way, it's probably justified....[/quote]

I have listened so often to the live recording from Rudolf Serkin at the Vienne Konzerthaus in October 1987 (attached). A lot of notes missing here (I count 9 cells of 2 x 16th àr 32th instead of 13) but it is so moving... He was 84.


Thank you Eddy for your advice. However I do not intend to think myself as a castrato for playing this music. I missed the indication una corda at the beginning but I do not see any indication senza balle...

Ahaaa LOL Good one Didier
You could maybe just play it an octave higher

Why didn't you include similar passages with BOTH pianists? Anyway, I don't have the score in front of me, but ... <WARNING: sacrilige approaching> I must venture to say that IMO Serkin must have interpreted the slurs as ties, which is clearly wrong because Beethoven would have just simply written a 16th-note rather than 2 tied 32nd-notes in a passage (the Recitativo) where there is suspension of meter, "free" rhythm and largely the impossibility of indicating a syncopation.

You are reminding me of a joke in Spanish from when I lived on the Mexican border of Texas. It's about a dog named Sin Bolas, and a mailman to whom the dog runs. When the owner sees the dog, he shouts "Dejalo, Sin Bolas". The mailman cries out "¡NO!"

For those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, it is probably for the best.

Scott

That IS FUNNY!

I'm going to look that up when I get back to my office.

You can hear how Alexey Koltakov plays this here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAOGY64ZvaU
at the 2:17 mark.