Maria Yudina plays Beethoven as he might well have played his own music. We have all read, in the literature about Beethoven, descriptions of the way he played. Suffice it to say, and here I quote Harold Schonberg from his excellent book The Great Pianists from Mozart to the Present Day, "... he would listen to current Beethoven specialists and consider them dry, unmusical and anything but expressive."
[If you want an example of such playing, listen to the Beethoven Sonata recordings of Richard Goode, a proclaimed Beethoven specialist, though I suspect that anyone who performs and records all 32 of the sonatas becomes a defacto Beethoven specialist in our time.]
Beethoven's was wild music and he was, in the context of the late Classical period, a time still of powdered wigs and courtly manners, a wild man. Listen as Maria Yudina Plays Beethoven's so called - and terribly misnamed - Moonlight Sonata, the Presto agitato. This is not music for genteel society and the qualification agitato was not chosen by accident. Beethoven's student, Ferdinand Ries, called his playing "capricious" and "infused with exquisite and inimitable expression". Ries could have been describing the playing of Maria Yudina.
Maria Yudina plays Beethoven as though the simplest turns of phrase, the most seemingly obvious cadences, plumb the depths of meaning and emotion. It is not, in her playing, a matter of excess, rather one of significance. Beethoven was a declamatory composer. He had things to say. All of the notes he wrote were carefully chosen and deserve to be given their due. Maria Yudina simply does exactly that.
Oh, and do take note of the first movement cadenza in the fourth piano concerto. It is by Brahms, and if your mind should wander you may find it a bit disconcerting to wake up in the midst of a piano concerto by Brahms you had no idea existed.
Beethoven Sonata n°14, Op 27 n°2 "Moonlight" Recorded live in 1954
i Adagio sostenuto ii Allegretto
iii Presto agitato
Beethoven Piano Sonata n°28 in A Major, Op 101
i Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung ii Lebhaft. Marschmassig
iii Langsam und sehnsuchtvoll iv Geschwinde, doch nicht zu sehr, und mit Entschlossenheit
Beethoven Piano Sonata n°32 in C minor Op 111
i Maestoso - Allegro con brio ed appassionato
ii Arietta: Adagio molto, semplice e cantabile (beginning)
ii Arietta: Adagio molto, semplice e cantabile (conclusion)
Beethoven 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli Op 120 Recorded in 1961
Tema: Vivace - Variation 1: Alla Marcia maestoso - Variation 2: Poco Allegro - Variation 3: Listesso tempo - Variation 4: Un poco più vivace - Variation 5: Allegro vivace - Variation 6: Allegro ma non troppo e serioso - Variation 7: Un poco più allegro - Variation 8: Poco vivace
Variation 9: Allegro pesante e risoluto - Variation 10: Presto - Variation 11: Allegretto - Variation 12: Un poco più moto - Variation 13: Vivace - Variation 14: Grave e maestoso - Variation 15: Presto Scherzando - Variation 16: Allegro - Variation 17: Allegro
Variation 18: Poco moderato - Variation 19: Presto - Variation 20: Andante - Variation 21: Allegro con brio Meno allegro Tempo primo - Variation 22: Allegro molto, alla Notte e giorno faticar di Mozart - Variation 23: Allegro assai - Variation 24: Fughetta (Andante) - Variation 25: Allegro - Variation 26: (Piacevole)
Variation 27: Vivace - Variation 28: Allegro - Variation 29: Adagio ma non troppo - Variation 30: Andante, sempre cantabile - Variation 31: Largo, molto espressivo
Variation 32: Fuga: Allegro - Variation 33: Tempo di Menuetto moderato
Beethoven Piano Concerto n°4 in G major Op 58 Kurt Sanderling conducting an unidentified orchestra Recorded in 1948
i Allegro moderato (beginning)
i Allegro moderato (conclusion) Cadenza by Johannes Brahms
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