The arrival on the scene of a bright new talent in the Beethoven
Piano Sonatas in the form of the young Korean pianist HJ Lim
(EMI Classics 50999 7041855 2) has prompted me to return to
the Nimbus set. The virtues of complete sets by the likes of
Alfred Brendel (Philips 438 1342 – see June 2011/2 Download
Roundup – here)
and Wilhelm Kempff (DG – see below) are well enough known but,
for some reason, we seem never to have got around to reviewing
the Nimbus set with Bernard Roberts. Not the least of its virtues
is that, with some ingenious organisation, the CD set is far
less bulky than you might imagine: the 11 CDs come in two double-size
cases, holding five discs plus booklet and six discs respectively,
all housed inside a cardboard slip case.
I actually started to write a review of the complete Nimbus
set a year ago, and lost what I’d written, apart from some notes
and jottings, when my computer crashed. I was able to piece
some of these together in time for the November 2011/2 Download
Roundup, but fortunately, when I lost what I’d written, my friend
Geoffrey Molyneux, who knows a great deal more about pianism
than I ever did and has owned the Nimbus set for some time,
came to the rescue. I promised then to patch my notes back together
to finish that review but got around only partially to doing
it.
Whereas Roberts’ recordings arose from mature consideration,
HJ Lim has committed the whole œuvre to disc at an
early stage in her career, whether from brave assurance or youthful
bravado I was very interested to find out. You can do so for
yourself from the Naxos Music Library if you have access to
that extremely valuable service. They offer both the first two
2-CD single volumes and the complete set. As they also have
the Roberts recordings, that’s a good way to compare for yourself.
Volume 1 from Lim contains Sonatas 29 Hammerklavier,
11, 26 Les Adieux, 4, 9, 10, 13 Quasi una fantasia
and 14 Moonlight (730092, 2 CDs for around £12.50).
The complete set (omitting the Op.49 sonatas because Beethoven
didn’t intend them for publication) comes on 8 CDs for around
£40 (4649522). Those willing to download can obtain Volume
1 for £6.99 from sainsburysentertainment.co.uk. They also have
the complete 8-CD set to download for £10.99, though you may
prefer to obtain this from amazon.co.uk for £12.99, complete
with the pdf version of the booklet.
Lim opens both Volume 1 and the complete set with the Hammerklavier
Sonata. She takes the first movement at a cracking pace – 10:24
against Roberts’ 11:42, making her performance commensurate
with Earl Wild, at 10:20 one of the fastest ever accounts (Ivory
Classics 76001). I was impressed by her technique; it makes
a barnstorming opening to the set, but it’s all a bit too much
unvaried and ‘hell-for-leather’; at his slightly slower tempo
Roberts achieves much more light and shade in this movement
and throughout the work, not least in his reading of the slow
movement, where his 17:58 allows him to achieve Innigkeit
without sounding portentous. At 12:50 Lim is certainly appassionato;
she doesn’t sound as rushed as I might have expected from the
different timings, but she doesn’t quite achieve the affective
quality demanded by the marking con molto sentimento.
Artur Schnabel’s recording of this sonata may come on an album
subtitled ‘Scholar of the Piano’ (EMI Icons 2650642) but there’s
much more than scholarship involved in his performance. This
remains my benchmark, especially for the slow movement: his
tempo almost exactly matches that of Roberts, but he captures
the affective qualities even more without ever sounding ponderous.
His recording comes with a degree of light surface noise, but
it’s never excessive and the piano tone is truly remarkable
for its age. Nevertheless, Roberts offers a better-recorded
modern alternative that I can certainly live with.
I should add that reviewers have been very much divided about
Lim’s performances; some have seen a great deal more of value
in them than I have. In the finale of the Hammerklavier
I hear some of the qualities that her admirers postulate – she’s
actually very little faster overall than Schnabel and her playing
is certainly risoluto – but my own ultimate judgement
hinges on whether I would wish to add her complete recording
or Volume 1 to my over-crowded collection. I have to say that
I wouldn’t, even at the attractive prices that I’ve mentioned.
On the other hand, I would certainly have considered purchasing
the Roberts set, especially at the special price of £28 post
free from Amazon.
You won’t even find them as a download for less. I know that
I’m effectively blowing our own trumpet, but I dipped into sonatas
from every period of Beethoven’s working life, comparing what
I heard with other versions that I knew, and found that Roberts
stood up well to the competition in every respect. He is not
always top dog in a particular sonata, but nearly always close.
The whole set is so inexpensive that I would recommend beginners
to buy it and to add individual recordings later.
CD 1 of the Nimbus set gets off to a quiet start with Sonata
No.1 from 1795. Though there are signs of the distinctive Beethoven
manner to come here, Roberts doesn’t stress these by over-egging
the pudding; he gives a very satisfying, neat, tidy, but not
too delicate account, taken at a fairly brisk pace throughout,
though never sounding rushed. The same is true of No.2 and No.3,
which open CD 2 and CD 3 respectively.
You might expect Lim to do particularly well in these youthful
sonatas, so I turned to her account of No.1 in expectation.
Predictably her tempi are consistently a little faster than
Roberts’, but not to a huge extent. There’s certainly lightness
of touch but it’s allied with underlying strength and I enjoyed
this performance.
Nimbus CD 1 closes with the Appassionata Sonata, from
Beethoven’s middle period. Roberts gives this, right from the
start, the soulful treatment which its name implies. In the
opening movement he takes Beethoven’s marking allegro assai
with a pinch of salt, perhaps thinking, as I have seen suggested,
that Beethoven sometimes confused the French assez
(fairly) and the Italian assai (very). Whatever the
reason, 10:13 – almost a minute longer than most performances
– seems to me to be reasonable for this movement, especially
as Roberts indulges in a degree of rubato (not excessive)
to achieve it. I’m with Roberts and his slightly weightier tempo
here, but if you are looking for a compromise, Jenö Jandó on
Naxos (8.550294, with No.21 and No.23) – as usual reliable without
being exceptional – splits the difference between Roberts and
the ‘mainstream’, as does Alfred Brendel on his early Vox recording
(CDX-5042, 2 CDs: Nos.16-19, 21-23 and 26 – or Alto ALC1016,
Nos.8, 14, 23 and 26). In his recording of the Appassionata
with the Emperor Concerto (Philips 468 6662, with VPO/Rattle),
Brendel is even closer to Roberts in this movement.
There’s respect for the marking andante con moto, too,
from Roberts in the second movement, though I might have welcomed
a slightly faster pace at the outset. In the finale he observes
both parts of the marking (allegro non troppo), so
there’s nothing headlong, but there is plenty of power and emotion
and the concluding bars are taken at a virtuoso pace. Overall
I found this a very satisfying account, bringing a degree of
new light to a well-known work without being at all quirky.
Listening to it a second time was even more convincing.
Predictably, Lim allies herself throughout with those who take
a faster view of this sonata, though her tempi are not extreme
she actually takes the opening movement slightly slower than
Angela Hewitt on the first volume of her Beethoven recordings
(Hyperion CDA67518 - review).
Lim takes the finale at quite a lick but so, for example, does
Vladimir Ashkenazy (Decca Eloquence 480 1309). Though her version
certainly works for me, so too does Roberts’.
If HJ Lim has set her interpretations down at an early stage
in her career, David Wilde is something of a wonder for the
opposite reason – though well into his seventies, he’s only
just entered the limelight, yet he plays with a combination
of the technique of a young virtuoso and the maturity of a seasoned
practitioner on his recording of Nos. 21 Waldstein,
17 Tempest and 31 (Delphian DCD34090: Recording of
the Month – review
and November 2011/2 Download Roundup.)
The d minor Sonata, Op.31/2, the Tempest, dates from
the transitional period between the earliest works, such as
the Op.18 Quartets, and the very productive middle period. This
was the period of the Third Piano Concerto when Beethoven’s
music was beginning to break away from the influence of the
previous generation of Haydn and Salieri. Wilde takes a more
expansive view of the first movement, adopts roughly the same
tempo as Roberts for the adagio, and is slightly faster
in the allegretto finale. I thought Roberts somewhat
routine in this sonata, especially in the adagio, which
sounds ponderous rather than affective.
I certainly preferred Wilde in the finale, though Brian Reinhart,
for all his admiration of the album as a whole, had some reservations
here. Roberts’ finale offers us the letter of the music with
exemplary technique, but it seems to miss the last degree of
joy. I appreciate that it’s allegretto, not allegro,
but I felt that Wilde’s 7:05 was more in the spirit of the music
than Roberts’s 7:26. The latter seems to offer a view of a composer
who is not yet completely his own man, not yet what Roberts
himself describes in the brief notes as ‘dynamic, deeply expressive
and visionary’. Lim rattles through this movement at an unbelievable
6:01; that’s preferable to Roberts and I can only marvel that
none of the phrasing is slurred at this speed, but Wilde’s is
the version of this sonata to have.
Though my recommendation of the Nimbus set overall holds, therefore,
this illustrates the hazards of relying on just one artist throughout;
for this sonata I’d certainly add another version. Though I
listened to Roberts on CD and to Wilde from an mp3 download
(albeit at the full 320kb/s rate, from classicsonline.com),
which ought to give Roberts an edge, Wilde sounded more dynamic
from the very opening of the first movement, the slow movement
a little more expressive and the finale a little more joyful.
Both Wilde and Roberts are preferable here to Thomas Sauer,
whose recording of the Op.31 Sonatas I found somewhat wanting
(MSR Classics MS1284 – see review).
David Wilde offers the middle-period Waldstein Sonata,
No.21 on his new recording, one of the works also available
separately from Nimbus. Wilde, who takes both sections very
slightly faster than Roberts, is closer to the general consensus
and on the whole slightly preferable. This time I think the
contest between the two pianists a little less weighted in Wilde’s
favour, though generally agreeing with Brian Reinhart, who thought
this probably the highlight of the disc.
Lim plays the Waldstein on the second disc of Volume
2 – CD4 of the complete set. Here again, the tempo of the first
movement is too hectic: at 9:58 against Wilde’s 10:48 and Roberts’s
11:05, the music doesn’t have time to breathe. The same is true
of the Introduzione, here tracked as a separate movement,
as on the Wilde recording. The final Rondo is a real
tour de force combined with real delicacy in the slower
sections, though the transition between the two can sound a
little abrupt and brutal.
BR was slightly less impressed by Wilde’s take on the late sonata,
Op.110. These late works are as difficult to bring off as the
Late String Quartets with which they are contemporaneous; both
perplexed Beethoven’s audiences and both can provide difficult
listening even for modern ears.
There’s one set of the late sonatas that remains my benchmark:
Wilhelm Kempff on DG E453 0102, an inexpensive 2-disc set of
Nos. 27-32 from his 1960s stereo recordings. I didn’t consult
him in the case of the Hammerklavier for fear of seeming
to be unduly influenced by nostalgia, but I can’t resist calling
Kempff into comparison for No.31, Op.110. Jens Laurson, writing
about Kempff’s recordings in a survey
of what was available at the time (2009) finds it hard to pin
down exactly what it is that makes Kempff’s Beethoven so superb.
Overall I can’t better his summing up – ‘Solid, in the best,
most empathetically positive sense of the word.’
Kempff and Roberts adopt almost exactly the same tempo in each
of the opening movements of Op.110, with Wilde just a little
slower than either. All three combine the cantabile
and molto espressivo aspects of the first movement
very well. Wilde is a little faster in the adagio and
fuga but, again, there’s very little in it. Kempff,
on whose recording DG run these last two sections together,
takes just 9:44 overall against Roberts’ 11:24 and Wilde’s 11:15.
Both sections from Kempff are faster: his adagio is
certainly more non troppo than from Roberts or Wilde,
without losing any of its emotive power, and his fugue is certainly
allegro without losing sight of the non troppo
marking and without sounding hurried. As good as Roberts and
Wilde are here, I’d certainly also want Kempff’s recording as
an alternative.
Lim is even faster in the adagio and fuga
– tracked together on her recording, as with Kempff, and coming
in at just 8:34. She starts the adagio portentously
and she’s generally both affective and effective in this section;
by the clock she’s the fastest of all the recordings that I
compared without seeming unduly hasty. Indeed, though she’s
a minute faster overall even than Kempff, I enjoyed her take
on this sonata more than I had expected.
Lim ends volume 1 with the Moonlight Sonata. In the
first movement she’s notably faster than Roberts and at least
some of the magic is lost thereby; a good deal less than you
might imagine from the comparative timings, but Roberts captures
the fantasia and allows us much better to see that
the nickname is apt. I didn’t enjoy Lim’s tentative account
of the second movement; it’s as if she were thinking out her
approach on the spot where Roberts knows where he’s going from
the start. Lim’s finale is sufficiently agitato but
here again there’s too much of a scrabble, even at a basic tempo
not much faster than that of Roberts, and I thought her less
than fully involved with the music.
One advantage of the Delphian recording concerns the inclusion
of Wilde’s own notes, which are informative not only about the
music but also about some of his decisions in performance. Even
at the extremely advantageous price, I could have wished that
Nimbus had also offered more detailed notes; you get just the
playing times plus two pages on the music and a page on Bernard
Roberts. If you purchase the Lim complete recording as a download
from amazon.co.uk, the booklet of notes comes as part of the
deal; I haven’t seen this, but I understand that some of HJ
Lim’s thoughts are a little bizarre.
Overall, then, I’d certainly strongly endorse the complete Nimbus
set for reliable performances – often much than that – a decent
quality of recording and sheer value. I’d want to supplement
it with individual recordings from some of the artists whom
I’ve mentioned. Regrettably, despite their availability at a
most advantageous price, neither of the individual twofers from
HJ Lim’s new recordings nor her complete set would be among
them. Give her Beethoven a few years to settle down and a complete
set from her may well be well worth hearing. Meanwhile, if you’re
looking to supplement Roberts with performances from a young
pianist on top form, try Ingrid Fliter in Nos. 8 Pathétique,
17 and 23 Appassionata (EMI 045732: Bargain of the
Month – review
and September 2011/2 Download Roundup).
Brian Wilson
CD listings:
CD 1 [54:36]
Piano Sonata No.1, Op.2/1 in f minor [16:48]
Piano Sonata No.22, Op.54 in F [12:27]
Piano Sonata No.23, Op.57 in f minor (Appassionata)
[25:10]
rec. Wyastone Leys, 11 August 1984. DDD.
CD 2 [57:52]
Piano Sonata No.2, Op.2/2 in A [25:09]
Piano Sonata No.24, Op.78 in F-sharp [10:40]
Piano Sonata No.28, Op.101 in A [21:49]
rec. Wyastone Leys, 14 November 1984 and 10 September 1985.
DDD.
CD 3 [62:28]
Piano Sonata No.3, Op.2/3 in C [16:27]
Piano Sonata No.19, Op.49/1 in g minor [8:10]
Piano Sonata No.21, Op.53 in C (Waldstein) [26:05]
rec. Wyastone Leys, 21 August 1984. DDD.
CD 4 [66:25]
Piano Sonata No.4, Op.7 in F [31:08]
Piano Sonata No.10, Op.14/2 in G [17:10]
Piano Sonata No.26, Op.81a in E-flat (Les Adieux) [17:51]
rec. Wyastone Leys, 11 December 1984, 22 October 1984 and 21
November 1985. DDD
CD 5 [54:32]
Piano Sonata No.5, Op.10/1 in c minor [19:03]
Piano Sonata No.6, Op.10/2, in F [12:36]
Piano Sonata No.7, Op.10/3 in D [22:39]
rec. Wyastone Leys, 22 October 1984. DDD
CD 6 [58:11]
Piano Sonata No.11, Op.22 in B-flat [25:27]
Piano Sonata No.20, Op.49/2 in G [8:17]
Piano Sonata No.15, Op.28 in D (Pastoral) [24:27]
rec. Wyastone Leys, 25 April 1985, 21 November 1984 and 30 April
1985. DDD
CD 7 [59:05]
Piano Sonata No.25, Op.79 in G [10:09]
Piano Sonata No.17, Op.31/2 in d minor (Tempest) [24:46]
Piano Sonata No.18, Op.31/3 in E-flat [24:10]
rec. Wyastone Leys, 11 December 1984 and 16 September 1985.
DDD
CD 8 [60:40]
Piano Sonata No.13, Op.27/1 in E-flat [16:10]
Piano Sonata No.29, Op.106 in B-flat (Hammerklavier)
[44:25]
rec. Wyastone Leys, 21 November 1984 and 5 September 1985. DDD
CD 9 [56:47]
Piano Sonata No.9, Op.14/1 in E [14:01]
Piano Sonata No.16, Op.31/1 in G [22:56]
Piano Sonata No.30, Op.109 in E [19:40]
rec. Wyastone Leys, 30 April 1985, 16 September 1985 and 17
June 1988. DDD
CD 10 [56:40]
Piano Sonata No.12, Op.26 in A-flat [20:01]
Piano Sonata No.14, Op.27/2 in c-sharp minor (Moonlight)
[16:45]
Piano Sonata No.31, Op.110 in A-flat [19:48]
rec. Wyastone Leys, 10 September 1985 and 25 April 1982. DDD
CD 11 [58:08]
Piano Sonata No.8, Op.13 in c minor (Pathétique) [18:36]
Piano Sonata No.27, Op.90 in e minor [12:47]
Piano Sonata No.32, Op.111 in c minor [26:33]
rec. Wyastone Leys, 30 November 1985, 22 October 1984 and 21
November 1985. DDD
Bernard Roberts (piano)