Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1
François-Frédéric Guy (piano)
rec. live, 14-15 December 2009, 17 May and 7/8 December 2010, 19/20 April
2011, the Arsenal, Metz, France
ZIG-ZAG TERRITOIRES ZZT111101 [3 CDs: 70:13 + 77:34 + 68:20]
The death of the CD has been confidently predicted for some time, so the plethora
of integral sets of Beethoven piano sonatas currently appearing is all the
more surprising. Here is one of them, released, as is becoming the norm, several
discs at a time, from French pianist François-Frédéric
Guy. It was recorded live in the superb concert hall created out of a nineteenth-century
munitions store at Metz. The sound is beautifully rich and immediate, close
enough to hear the occasional involuntary sound from the pianist, and in front
of a near-silent audience. Curiously, applause is retained only for the final
sonata on each of the three discs. The piano used is a Steinway, its bass
register particularly rich, sonorous and clearly defined. The presentation
is very chic, and some might resist the imposed juxtaposition of the initials
LVB and FFG. The booklet, in three languages, features an interesting and
wide-ranging essay by Beate Angelika Kraus.
This collection begins with Sonata No. 4, completed in 1797, and ends with
the “Moonlight”, No. 14, composed in 1801. The set thus takes
in all of the sonatas to be found in the first volume of the Henle Urtext
edition, with the exception of the first three sonatas, Op. 2, which were
dedicated to Haydn, and the lovely Sonata 15 in D major, often known as the
“Pastoral”. Taking them in chronological order of composition,
the major challenge of Op. 7 is the sublime slow movement. The music is so
slow and filled with silence, so empty of incident, that immense concentration
is needed on the part of the performer, particularly live. Guy succeeds splendidly,
just as he does in the busy first movement, in the scherzo, and in the graceful,
rather anti-climactic finale. This is a very fine performance indeed of a
large-scale early sonata relatively rarely heard outside of integral cycles.
The slow movement of Op. 10/1 is another fine meditation, and Guy’s
concentration is again palpable. The contrast in the first movement between
the dramatic first subject and the more relaxed, lyrical second subject is
delightfully handled. The set is full of small insights such as this. Listen
to the second movement of Sonata No. 6. What is it, first of all? It’s
not a slow movement, nor is it a minuet and trio. It’s a sort of cross
between the two, a typical example of the kind of formal and structural surprise
Beethoven reserves for us even as early as this in the series of thirty-two.
Guy’s performance of this movement is a small miracle of subtlety and
insight.
Guy’s magisterial poise is ruffled in only a very few places. The first
movement of the Seventh Sonata never really settles down, for example. The
tempo indication is Presto, but there is a nervousness to the playing - and
a not always tidy response to some of the broken right hand quavers - that
is rather at odds with the music. The rest of the sonata goes swimmingly,
however, from the deeply felt slow movement - where Guy casts his habitual
spell - through the silly, entertaining scherzo and the curiously stop-start
finale. He is very grave and measured in the first movement of the Pathétique,
prolonging the silences to daring lengths. Unlike Ingrid Fliter in her excellent
EMI performance, he reverts only to the Allegro at the repeat of the
exposition; in other words, without repeating the slow introduction, he does
what is marked in the score. The first two movements are very fine, with a
particularly inward slow movement which, once again, makes much use of silence.
Is this what makes the audience slightly restive? For most of these sonatas
you wouldn’t know they were there, but here you can catch the odd rustle
and even a distant cough or two. This is not enough to detract from the performance,
which ends with a finale in which Guy invents a few discreet expressive devices,
thus injecting some interest into this often denigrated movement. Deft, understanding
performances follow of the two short, undemanding Op. 14 sonatas, composed
at more or less the same time as the Pathétique.
These are live performances and one is struck by the hold the pianist has
over his audience. This is achieved, at least in part, by his mastery of the
trajectory of each work, and of its narrative qualities. The listener really
feels as if each sonata is a shared journey. I felt this in particular in
respect of the Op. 22 sonata, again, not one of the most demanding for the
listener, and not one of the most inspired, even rather a discursive work,
but one in which the pianist is so in control of the direction the music takes
that his concentration, and that of the audience, does not flag.
With the Op . 26 sonata, Beethoven entered into a different world, and so
will those who listen to these discs. Not one of the four movements of this
sonata is in sonata form, and the whole work is clearly of a transitional
nature, as Beethoven moved into what we have come to call his “middle
period”. Perhaps it is to mark the beginning of this change that Guy
gives this work such robust treatment. From the second movement onwards piano
markings are frequently ignored, and crescendo is likely to be read
as forte or even fortissimo. Pretty much gone is the smooth
legato playing that so beautifully characterised much of the earlier, classically
inclined works, in favour of a more percussive style. This will have worked
well, no doubt, in concert, but for this listener at least, it is quite wearying
for repeated listening, particularly in the famous third movement funeral
march (“on the death of a hero”) that was played at Beethoven’s
own funeral. This style of playing spills over into the Op. 27/1 sonata, though
it was only really at a few points in the finale that I really wished Guy
would tone down his response to Beethoven’s forte and sforzando
markings. Otherwise, this is a deeply perceptive reading of this strange sonata,
whose four movements are played without a break and whose headlong finale
is interrupted, just before the end, by a reprise of a few bars of the pensive
slow movement. In the most famous of all these sonatas, the Moonlight,
the finale is again very forced, with piano markings once again frequently
ignored. This is a pity, as the earlier movements are very successful, and
the famous first movement in particular, to which Guy manages to bring his
own personal stamp without, it must be said, making us think we are hearing
it for the first time.
There are probably finer performances available of each of these sonatas,
but that takes nothing away from the achievement as a whole, which is remarkable.
As a cycle, I don’t think these performances have quite the consistency
and overall insight of those I have heard by Paul Lewis on Harmonia Mundi,
but they are live, and this produces many individual moments of greater excitement
and inspiration. The only real question is, can this particular set of these
particular sonatas be recommended on its own terms? The answer, even allowing
for the slight proviso that some of the playing in the later sonatas is a
bit hard driven for my own taste, is a resounding “yes”.
William Hedley
Very fine performances of eleven Beethoven sonatas recorded in concert at
Metz.
Masterwork Index: Sonatas 1-8
~~ 9-15
CD 1
Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 27/2, Moonlight (1801) [15:00]
Piano Sonata No. 9 in E major, Op. 14/1 (1799) [13:28]
Piano Sonata No. 10 in G major, Op. 14/2 (1799) [16:25]
Piano Sonata No. 1I in B flat major, Op. 22 (1800) [24:14]
CD 2
Piano Sonata No. 8 in minor, Op. 13, Pathétique (1799) [20:32]
Piano Sonata No. 5 in C minor, Op. 10/1 (1798) [17:19]
Piano Sonata No. 6 in F major, Op. 10/2 (1798) [16:02]
Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, Op. 10/3 (1798) [22:23]
CD 3
Piano Sonata No. 13 in E flat major, Op. 27/1 (1801) [14:49]
Piano Sonata No. 12 in A flat major, Op. 26 (1800) [19:38]
Piano Sonata No. 4 in E flat major, Op. 7 (1797) [31:52]