Search - Beethoven, Rosen :: Late Piano Sonatas

Buy this set.

K-wacky | Philadelphia, PA United States | 06/15/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These are loving, beautiful performances of a great universe of music. Rosen lets Beethoven speak straight to our hearts in song, the spirit of the dance, irony, rude joke, melancholy, and the conquest of the tragedy that is the lot of all humankind. A great value at any price. Buy this set and also treat yourself to Rosen's books: The Classical Style (available in hardbound with a CD of Rosen's more recent interpretations of the Ops. 106 (Hammerklavier) and 110 Sonatas), Critical Entertainments, The Romantic Generation, and others. No one has written more acutely about the Beethoven piano sonatas than Charles Rosen. As he says, for Beethoven, the exploration of the tonal universe is an act of introspection. Deep introspection that, in Rosen's analyses and performances, penetrates from Beethoven's heart to the listener's. Rosen's performances of the late Beethoven piano sonatas reflect his incomparable knowledge, comprehension, and appreciation of these compositions, of the "classical style" of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert, and of the history of the performance of these works. Built on this foundation, his playing is immediately engaging and remains completely satisfying when heard again and again."

Deep into Beethoven's personal universe.

David J. Friedlander | Columbus, Ohio United States | 02/26/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This set is incredible, and it's a bargain to boot. Rosen has spent years studying and writing about this unique music and it is immediately apparent in these magnificent recordings. His interpretation is peerless and his mastery and technique infallable despite the rugged difficulty of Beethoven's late piano music. The "Hammerklavier" performance is wonderful, and every nuance is shaped logically and artistically despite the extreme challenges found almost everywhere in this profound work. Rosen is able to do the near impossible, which is to "own" this unusual and deeply expressive music. He doesn't just play it, he lives it as though every impulse in his mind and body is focused on expressing this "symphony" for piano. The sound is top notch, and Rosen's instrument has a very rich and present sonority. Recommended without any reservation whatsoever. If you are interested in Beethoven, here is his music played in such a manner that you will find yourself completely absorbed in his unique and powerful musical world."

Brittle distant recording, and so so sound quality

Gulley Jimson | Bethesda, MD | 11/12/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I clearly don't know as much about recordings of the late sonatas as other people on this website, but after listening to the Brendel's version I have several complaints about the Rosen collection.What these recordings have going for them is that they're a great bargain, and were exactly what I was looking for in one package. Rosen also has a reputation for being a profound scholar of these pieces of music - just like Brendel and Fischer-Diskau with certain pieces of Schubert - and that only sweetened the deal. But I have several complaints.First, this is deeply emotional music, and even if it is executed here with a great deal of technical skill, I felt its power much more in Brendel's recording. There was a warmth of tone there that wasn't sentimentality but simply more in line with the content of the music. Rosen's style of playing reminds me of an extraordinarily complicated teletype machine.Part of this lack of warmth is simply the recording: it isn't very crisp (it is, indeed, a fairly old transfer) and I was also annoyed by the fact that there was such a difference in volume from one part of the recording to another. You would have to turn up the volume to hear some faint parts of a sonata, only to be deafened by another part. This is especially true on headphones, which is how I usually listen to classical music. Now I usually only put this CD on in the car, where these two flaws aren't as noticeable.None of this, of course, spoils the music: these are beautiful pieces played well, and they are indeed a value. Rosen seems to insist on stripping his playing of any trace of romanticism, though, and he swings too far to the other direction: the playing is completely clean, but scrubbed so hard that he's started taking off the skin."