Beethoven - Piano Concerto 3 [Schiff/ Haitink-Staatskapelle Dresden]Here's another Beethoven Piano Concerto from Andras Schiff, last month it was the glorious Fifth Piano Concerto [28th November 2010] i listened to, the Third Concerto is the second best liked of the five Beethoven Concerto's for me, it has a gorgeous slow movement, and it's this that i found really moving today.
Andras Schiff, is Hungarian, born in 1953, he made these recordings in 1996, Clive Barda took the front booklet photo, a sympathetic shot of Schiff and Haitink.
The second movement is so serene and even spiritual, there's a good one minute of solo piano music at the beginning, and Schiff takes 1:19, it seems slightly slow to me, however others are no different, Perahia takes 1:17, Uchida 1:20, right after Beethoven uses the strings and flute to create an orchestral pastoral sound [1:19-2:34], and the flute / strings combination features highly in this movement, with a very sparing use of brass, the opening piano notes come back to haunt [5:31+], but this time only a 15 second solo before the strings come in, but it gives a nostalgic taste of the opening, and it's the flute / strings combination that comes back towards the end [6:56+], nicely rhapsodic, and they soar to a high sweetness on the violins [7:15-7:20], with slow bowed heartbeats on gentle strings in the background, this is the very best moment for me, it's a movement of peace and reflection, harmony and an inner love, and i'm moved every time i hear it.
Here's Paul Lewis playing the second movement on YouTube.
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