Beethoven Sonatas, Opp. 101 & 106 "Hammerklavier"

Beethoven Sonatas, Opp. 101 & 106 "Hammerklavier"

Beethoven Sonatas, Opp. 101 & 106 "Hammerklavier"
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CD Details

Brand: UCHIDA,MITSUKO
Performer: Mitsuko Uchida
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2007-08-14
Music Label: Philips
Soundtracks:
  1. Allegretto, Ma Non Troppo
  2. Vivace Alla Marcia
  3. Adagio, Ma Non Troppo, Con Affetto... Allegro
  4. Allegro
  5. Scherzo: Assai Vivace
  6. Adagio Sostenuto
  7. Largo/Allegro/Allegro Risoluto

Music reviews of Beethoven Sonatas, Opp. 101 & 106 "Hammerklavier"

Music Review: Mitsuko Uchida Plays Late Beethoven
Rating: 5 Stars

Mitsuko Uchida (b. 1948) has achieved fame through her recordings of the sonatas of Schubert and Mozart. In recent years, she has turned to the sonatas of Beethoven. She has recorded a CD of the final three sonatas, op. 109, 110, 111, and this new CD includes opus 101 and the "Hammerklavier" opus 106. In this CD, Uchida has given a performance of late Beethoven to treasure.

This is an inspired recording indeed, as Uchida plays with what can only be described as complete musicality. Her playing, and her chosen repertoire, reminds me greatly of Wilhelm Kempff. I was stuck by the thought that is apparent in these readings, by the voicing, fluidity of rhythm, and lyricism. The latter quality is one not often associated with the "Hammerklavier", but in the contrasts Uchida brings out between the stormy, jagged sections of the work and the moments of song and reflection, Uchida finds a new dimension to this music.

Beethoven's composed his piano sonata in A major, opus 101 in 1814-1815 when the quantity of his compositions had diminished as the composer found a new musical direction. The companions to this work are the opus 90 piano sonata, the song-cycle "An Die Ferne Geliebte" and the two cello sonatas, opus 102. In the improvisatory character of the work, opus 101 bears some resemblance to the "Moonlight" sonata, opus 27 n. 2. This is one of my favorite works of Beethoven. It opens with a reflective, moderately paced wandering theme that Uchida makes her own with subtle shifts of tempo, and lovely tone quality through beautiful plangent voicing of the parts. She makes the most of the opening theme as it returns just before the fugal finale -- the first piano sonata that Beethoven would end with a large fugue. After the wayardly romantic opening movement, Beethoven writes a contrastingly vigorous march with a quiet interlude. The slow movement is short and intense and -- as is the case with the "Waldstein" sonata -- a prelude to the lengthy finale which consists, as I have noted of an elaborate and joyful fugue. This music is Beethoven at his greatest. Uchida brings out the depths of this sonata.

The "Hammerklavier", Beethoven's longest and most difficult piano sonata occupied him for the latter half of 1817 and for most of the following year. In the 19th Century, this work was regarded as almost unplayable. With the advent of recordings, we have been blessed with many performers who can bring the work to life. Unlike the other later piano sonatas, the Hammerklavier is in four large expansive movements, culminating with an enormous fugue as does the late b-flat major string quarter, opus 130. (The Hammerklavier also has resemblances to an early large scale B flat major piano sonata, opus 22, which, alas, is too little performed.)

There is an understandable tendency in recordings of the "Hammerklavier" to emphasize the virtuosic, discordant, heaven-storming and banging timbre of the work. Uchida has the strengh to bring out these aspects of the score, but the uniqueness of her reading lies in her contrast of these qualities with the quiter moments of the "Hammerklavier." Her sense of the work as a whole comes out in the second theme of the opening movement, the the long and introspective slow movement with its passages of filigree, and in the voicing and clarity she brings to the monumental fugal finale -- including the slow and reflective second theme. Beethoven wrote that in this finale he was not writing a strict Bachian fugue but rather was infusing the fugal form with his own feeling of poetry. Uchida brings out the strength and war-like character of the Hammerklavier but even more importantly its feeling of introspection and vision.

Robin Friedman
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Description of Beethoven Sonatas, Opp. 101 & 106 "Hammerklavier"

Mitsuko Uchida's scholarship of the works she performs and the energy she displays when playing have won her a dedicated following and a place as one of today's great piano legends. She has always been revered for her intense musical connection with the works of Mozart and Schubert; her many recordings of their works have become iconic and she has won numerous awards. In more recent years, Mitsuko Uchida has turned her attention to Beethoven. Her first disc of Beethoven piano sonatas earned great critical acclaim: "Anyone looking for an honest yet deeply sophisticated approach to Beethoven-- never theatrical, never merely scholarly--would do well to look to Ms. Uchida's new CD"--The New York Times Now Decca presents Ms. Uchida's new recording of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 28 and the Hammerklavier Sonata, considered to be Beethoven's most complex and challenging piano compositions.
Here Mitsuko Uchida attempts the Mount Everest of piano sonatas, Beethoven's "Hammerklavier," a work of supreme power and complex structure. She offers a thrillingly virile performance, wanting neither in power nor accuracy. The first movement is a blaze of sound, a tiny pause after the initial statement of chords most welcome, with the bizarre rhythms intact and the harmonies sharp-edged. If the lengthy Adagio is missing some of its leaden hopelessness, it makes up for it in sheer darkness, and the violent flow of sound needed for the finale is clear and potent. Throughout, gentler passages are not overlooked, but daintiness never enters into the performance. Her reading of Opus 101 is just as fine. She misses none of the warmth of the opening movement; the sharp-edged March of the second movement is in strict time without ever becoming menacing; the fugal finale almost as impressive as that of the "Hammerklavier." This is a superlative achievement. --Robert Levine

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