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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
96 of 97 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
A complete set of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas will provide any serious music lover with rich and endless enjoyment. Bold, challenging, beautiful, witty and fresh - they seem to encompass all aspects of human sensibility and aspiration. It is perhaps the wit and the freshness that impress most in Barenboim's EMI boxed set of the complete sonatas.
Daniel Barenboim was 25 when he was invited to record them. Has any other pianist ever received such an invitation at that age? Barenboim accepted, but insisted that he be free to record them again if he wished to at a later stage in his career. Well, so far he has made one further complete recording, and that is very fine too.
This set, however, recorded 1966-1969, is the one complete set I prefer above all others. Every listener will have his favourite sonatas and his favourite moments in them. I especially like Barenboim's spontaneous playing of the four sonatas found on CD 8. Elsewhere, Barenboim sometimes has a tendency to push slow tempos to extreme: the variation movements of Nos 30 and 32 are surely excessively slow.
Welcome indeed, especially for those who once owned these recordings on first release vinyl, is the high quality of these 1989 EMI transfers. Adding inestimably to the value of this set are the notes provided by Eric Blom. Slightly abridged and edited here, they originally accompanied the first complete recording of the 32 sonatas made in the 1930s by Artur Schnabel.
42 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Whenever I buy a set of CD's at such a discount price, I instantly question the reason(s) why they are so cheap. Especially when I see who the artist(s) are and what the record label is, as is the case here.
But my fears are laid to rest because I think this is one of the best value for money items I've ever bought.
I actually remember owning part of this Barenboim cycle on old vinyl LP's (in a different era!) so I know what I was to expect.
Being re-mastered on CD's has meant a new crispness and dynamics to the recording, breathing new life to, what I think are very competent and sensitive accounts of these wonderful works (I actually think this Beethovens' most expressive and intimate medium as he was, primarily, a pianist).
Barenboim has a very understated approach to the works; letting them, largely, speak for themselves. Not putting too much personal interpretation into them, but at the same time having a sensitivity and clarity to form and structure, and an understanding of the musical mind of the composer.
He is not frightened of including the exposition repeats. Something that was sadly not observed with other artists of the mid-to-late twentieth century.
Recordings are, by and large, good, considering their age (mainly 60's and 70's) when Barenboim was at his peak as a pianist. It's a shame though, that some of the works are not laid out in chronoligical or compositional order on the ten discs. If, like me, you want to follow the works in compositional order to grasp the musical thinking of the composer at the time: You have to chop and change discs somewhat! And also, even though there are adequate write ups for the music there is nothing on Barenboim himself.
But these are small quibbles considering that you're paying about 2-50 GBP per disc...
Great value for money and you won't go far wrong with them...
But my fears are laid to rest because I think this is one of the best value for money items I've ever bought.
I actually remember owning part of this Barenboim cycle on old vinyl LP's (in a different era!) so I know what I was to expect.
Being re-mastered on CD's has meant a new crispness and dynamics to the recording, breathing new life to, what I think are very competent and sensitive accounts of these wonderful works (I actually think this Beethovens' most expressive and intimate medium as he was, primarily, a pianist).
Barenboim has a very understated approach to the works; letting them, largely, speak for themselves. Not putting too much personal interpretation into them, but at the same time having a sensitivity and clarity to form and structure, and an understanding of the musical mind of the composer.
He is not frightened of including the exposition repeats. Something that was sadly not observed with other artists of the mid-to-late twentieth century.
Recordings are, by and large, good, considering their age (mainly 60's and 70's) when Barenboim was at his peak as a pianist. It's a shame though, that some of the works are not laid out in chronoligical or compositional order on the ten discs. If, like me, you want to follow the works in compositional order to grasp the musical thinking of the composer at the time: You have to chop and change discs somewhat! And also, even though there are adequate write ups for the music there is nothing on Barenboim himself.
But these are small quibbles considering that you're paying about 2-50 GBP per disc...
Great value for money and you won't go far wrong with them...
37 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I didn't much like these recordings when they appeared in the sixties. And now I realise why. Barenboim isn't exactly playing the Great Virtuoso here. There's little to impress a teenager. But lots to delight a much older listener.
The playing is understated. Barenboim seems to dislike letting local colour detract from the larger vision of the music as a whole. Certainly, this can short-change some of Beethoven's abrupt changes of dynamics, which somehow lose their shock value, but it allows for a great sense of coherence traversing the late sonatas.
And the smaller, less well known sonatas get, in the main, readings that bring out their treasures. The F-sharp sonata, for example, is full of felicities, though you might want a little more glee in the second movement.
Good companions, these recordings, which waited, probably with a knowing smile, forty years for me to start to treasure them.
The playing is understated. Barenboim seems to dislike letting local colour detract from the larger vision of the music as a whole. Certainly, this can short-change some of Beethoven's abrupt changes of dynamics, which somehow lose their shock value, but it allows for a great sense of coherence traversing the late sonatas.
And the smaller, less well known sonatas get, in the main, readings that bring out their treasures. The F-sharp sonata, for example, is full of felicities, though you might want a little more glee in the second movement.
Good companions, these recordings, which waited, probably with a knowing smile, forty years for me to start to treasure them.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Young man's Beethoven
Barenboim was under the age of 30 when he recorded this set Beethoven's sonatas and they strike me as a young man's effort. Read more
Published 6 days ago by Rf And Tm Walters
a thoroughly worthwhile set
I was recently given this set of Beethoven Sonatas and have now listened to them entire. They were recorded in the late 1960s at Abbey Road and produced by Savi Raj Grubb - a... Read more
Published 21 days ago by Mr. Ian A. Macfarlane
Among the very best - but don't ignore the rest
Like many reviewers, I have known and loved these performances for years, and still find new things to admire. Read more
Published 3 months ago by A. Duncan-Jones
My favorite
I have many versions of most of the sonatas but as far as a complete set this one is still my favorite.
Mr Barenboim plays with such passion. Read more
Mr Barenboim plays with such passion. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Sc Jeannet
Music for a lifetime
This is music for a lifetime. It contains oceans of thoughts, joy, sorrow.
Barenboim is not doing anything exceptional with these sonatas, he is just playing them. Read more
Barenboim is not doing anything exceptional with these sonatas, he is just playing them. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Per Arne Rudberg
Genius at twenty five!
I'll come clean...I'm a vinyl freak! I grew up with this early Barenboim set on L.P's. However, there is good reason WHY I love vinyl analogue sound. Read more
Published on 19 April 2010 by Stephen Horton
Beautifully played
The quality of both the recording, and the performance is excellent. Some other reviewers thought that some of his playing was rather slow, but I disagree, and as none of us knew... Read more
Published on 25 Feb 2009 by Happily retired
Wonderful playing and music spoilt by poor recording and ADD transfer
What a disappointment. I was really looking forward to getting this boxed set featuring the young Daniel Barenboim at the height of his technical prowess. Read more
Published on 5 Feb 2009 by Mr. R. Wilson Laidlaw
Beethoven Complete Piano Sonatas
Although these performances are now all well over 30 years old, I cannot imagine a better bargain. Barenboim was already well versed in this repertoire at the time he made this... Read more
Published on 29 Jan 2009 by N. T. VINCE
Passionate
I play these pieces regularly on my piano but I was reduced to tears on hearing several of these renditions by Barenboim. Read more
Published on 15 Oct 2008 by Dr. I. T. R. Cockburn
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