Beethoven - Piano Sonata 14 [Barenboim]Here's a nice 'famous' selection of Piano Sonatas from Barenboim's first survey, of the complete 32 Sonatas by Beethoven for EMI, these were recorded in 1967, wow 43 years ago, but still sound wonderfully recorded, even though i admit the piano sound is a bit dull, it really could do with some more treble to balance it out, it's good to have Barenboim's first thoughts on these wonderful works.
Barenboim is Argentinian, born in 1942, he is now 67, and i believe he lives in Germany, the booklet photo is actually quite good, showing a silhouetted piano in a darkened room, but Barenboim is nicely lit.
The justly famous opening movement is mesmerising, but on this listen i was wowed by the last movement, marked 'Presto Agitato', and it certainly is, there's tension and drama all over the place, the rolling notes up the piano, topped off with an outburst [0:00-0:11], there's the agitation in the left hand bass [0:30-0:50], like a low growling dog, if Beethoven can't grab your attention by playing at normal volume, then he repeats by shouting!, in the end he drums the message into you, from here it's an ongoing rush that just never stops, trills and runs and chord bursts, it's one after another, presto movements are usually short and sweet [or sour however you look at them], but this movement lasts nearly eight minutes, it must be tiring on the Pianist, it's a tour de force, one of Beethoven's more inspired outbursts, but it's hard not to get carried away with the exuberance of it all, again, Beethoven is a genius!.
Here's Barenboim playing the last movement of the moonlight on YouTube.
