MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS

Downloads available from http://www.eclassical.com/

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Complete works for Solo Piano - Vol. 10

Sieben Bagatellen Op.33 (1802) [18:53]
Bagatelles 1795-1804 [15:28]
Elf neue Bagatellen Op.119 (1820-22) [13:17]
Bagatelles 1810-25 [7:21]
Sechs Bagatellen Op.126 (1823-24) [15:16]
Ronald Brautigam (fortepiano)
rec. ÖsterÅker Church, Sweden, August 2010
BIS-SACD-1882 [71:07]

Experience Classicsonline


 
 
Für Elise is cited on the cover of this release, and the booklet notes begin with a couple of paragraphs on the equality of popularity of this tune with the Ode an die Freude, and the contrast in creative gestation between these melodies. There is speculation as to what a ‘complete’ survey of Beethoven’s Bagatelles might be, as only the Opp. 33, 119 and 126 were published in his lifetime, and by no means all the miscellany of unpublished works gathered together after his death have titles or are defined as Bagatelles as such. What all of these pieces have in common is an avoidance of the standard forms characteristic of the first movement in a sonata from this period. In his booklet notes Roeland Hazendonk remarks that the Bagatelles not only hark back to pre-classical suite movements, but were also an enticing fore-runner of the character pieces which Romantic composers after Beethoven used to break free from the classical roots of tonality to which Beethoven still adhered in his sonatas.
 
With a programme which covers pretty much the entirety of Beethoven’s creative lifetime, Ronald Brautigam has recorded the first half of this CD on a fortepiano from c.1805, and the second half, including Für Elise, on another fine Paul McNulty made reproduction from c.1819. The differences aren’t huge, with the later instrument having a fuller bass and richer treble, though both instruments having an extremely fine sound. The point has been made for this series before but it’s worth making again. The forerunners of the modern metal-framed grand pianos of today have lower string tension and a smaller volume in general, but as Paul McNulty and Ronald Brautigam amply prove here and elsewhere, these instruments can whip up a real storm. These Bagatelles are by no means all light and easy charmers, and the Bagatelle in C minor WoO 53 on track 11 is a case in point; a wide-ranging study on an innocent sounding theme which is brought through moments of Schubertian turbulence.
 
One of the nice features with these instruments and some of these pieces is the appearance and use of the soft pedal – a real damper rather than just a shift from three to two strings as with a modern grand. The third of the Sieben Bagatellen Op.33 has this effect for instance, the soft pedalled moments appearing as a kind of echo. As you might expect with Beethoven, these ‘echoes’ never appear in quite the key you might expect, creating an even greater effect of other-worldliness.
 
Für Elise itself is played with great subtlety and charm, and without any attempt to make more of it than the piece demands – even people who are heartily sick of the work should find themselves falling back in love with it from this performance. Anyone doubting the appeal of an album filled entirely with Bagatelles should think again. The range of pieces here is staggering, from miniature sketches the shortest of which is only 11 seconds long, to rich and far-reaching movements which cover masses of territory both emotional and technical. Particularly the Sechs Bagatellen Op.126, Beethoven’s last published work for piano, contain some remarkable music. Anyone with an interest in the sonatas and Beethoven’s late ‘problem-and-solution’ approach should hear these works – free as they are from the rein of cyclical sonata form. Hazendonk describes them as “witty, often hard-driven and sardonically humoristic music”, and Ronald Brautigam uses them to push his instrument to the limit.
 
With superb 5.0 SACD surround this is a recording to be treasured in its own right, and comes highly recommended as something a bit special even amongst the rest of Brautigam’s excellent fortepiano Beethoven cycle.
 
Dominy Clements
 



 

 

 



 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.