Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Performer Up To The Music, 26 Feb 2007
I have heard Brendel play live on two occasions. On both occasions he transformed the atmosphere of the audiece. Once, in a church in Bath, I heard him play Beethoven's Opus 110 and at the end the very light in the church became more 'gold' than before. A second time I heard him play the Diabelli Variations and at the end the lights in the Colston Hall, to this day I swear, became a brighter intensity of white. These are once in a lifetime events produced by the sheer intensity of Brendel in performance. I once had a live recording of these variations [dating from, I believe, 1979] on vinyl which was superb, alas, I have mislaid this Brendel recording.
The variations have the greatest diversity. There are many arguements about Beethoven's intentions - are the variations grouped in obvious sets? is there one variation in particular that is the focal point of the piece? - and so forth, all of them have their point. To me, the first 10 variations are an exploration of abstract keyboard patterns, it is like observing the periodic table of the elements in the incredible sense of objectivity in the music. I realise this may sound like nonsense, and it also makes the music sound very cold and unfeeling which it certainly is not - it is very intense, but in a very strange way that is difficult and perhaps impossible to pin down in words.
After these first 10 variations I would suggest the following 10 [up to #20] accelerate the pace of the music. These ten variations include recognisable forms [march, baroque overture] and thus are a bit less abstract than the initial ten. Variation 18, however, is the most elusive music with a recollection of the climax of the Adagio of the Hammerklavier Opus 106 but compressed in to such a small stretch of time! Variation 20 then is a sombre, harmonically rich canon which clearly calls a break to the proceedings through it's stillness.
From here the music includes a fughetta [variation 24] which is Bachian and yet.....not Bachian, the linear voice leading is freer than Bach wold have permitted himself and the harmonies have a diatonic poignance that is unique. Variation 28 is another 'compression chamber' - it is like a 32 bar break on the Fugue from the Hammerklavier, compressed to the shortest span of time such that the dissonances become simultaneoulsy more ferocious and more humorous [the fugue, it is often forgotten, has its own humour incorporated in the dissonant counterpoint].
This leads to 3 variations in the minor. Number 30 has a middle section of strettos [overlapping entries of voices] that has the intensity of Tristan which Number 31 is justly famous for its chromatic lyricism. Here there is a possible parallel with Bach's Goldberg Variation #25 but the Beethoven is very different in feel, it is at once more romantic and more 'modern' in the absence of boundaries. When the trills rise in to the highest register of the piano and disappear in silence only for the music to recommence in a lower register you feel the desire for dissolution ['O that this too too solid flesh would melt in to a dew...'] and the resignation that this will not happen. The following fugue which is variation Number 32 is a triple fugue [almost unique in Beethoven] and it has splendid octave entries that run up from the bass, it is extremely exciting. The transition to the final variation is also justly famous because as if through a 'beam me up' contribution from Star Trek suddenly the music settles in to a minuet of the most gracious beauty. This leads to a coda which recalls the Arietta of Opus 111 in a manner that is both moving and humourous.
Humour is the key to this music. There are moments as intense as anywhere else in Beethoven but throughout the piece there is a sense that these various moods are viewed with comic irony.
Brendel's performance manages the transitions between the variations with wonderful confidence. He has written that this is, to him, the greatest piano work of all and he plays it with the dedication and conviction one would expect together complete technical mastery to bring off his conception of the work. I would give it more than 5 stars if I could.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Considerable reputation, but..., 14 April 2009
...this reviewer was mildly disappointed. The Brendel Diabelli Variations is frequently held up as one of the greats, and while it's true that Brendel has some interesting things to say about many of the variations (especially the slower ones), what lets him down in my humble opinion is technique: from time to time I was pretty shocked by the lapses in intonation and unevenness of tone (the Pollini version, while not plumbing the depths of the Brendel, is worth listening to for a comparison in this regard).
Turning to specific variations, I was rather let down by Brendel's account of the final three variations (Pollini I think pulls these off best of the versions I've heard so far). No 31 lacks the poise of Pollini or Barenboim, while No 32 lacks Pollini's energy, though is far superior to Barenboim's bizarre account, with its haphazard dynamics and unnecessary rubato. (Is there ANY version of No 32 that *doesn't* insert a ritardando before the coda? It's not in the score and it's musically so wrong and so at variance with what I think Beethoven intended with this passage it baffles me that everyone seems to do this.)
Something tells me there is "perfect Diabelli recording" out there. However with the advent of playlists, you can always make your own out of several different recordings. This one is worth having for that purpose.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Raucous and profound, 9 Jun 2008
The Diabelli Variations were started in 1819, before the last of Beethoven's 3 final piano sonatas, but finished after the completion of the final sonata, op.111.
It is written in the same style as the last 5 piano sonatas, the 9th symphony, the Missa Solemnis and the op.119 and op.126 piano Bagatelles - before he entered the wholly different world of the 5 Late String Quartets.
Brendel has described these variations as 'the greatest of all piano works'. He used them as the subject of a lecture entitled 'Does Classical music have to be entirely serious?' - Beethoven combines a great deal of typical raucous humour with more tender and profound reflections.
Beethoven seems to have been on a much freer rein in these pieces than in the piano sonatas. He couldn't mess around as much as this in op.111 of course (although there is a great deal of humour even in this 'last word' in piano sonatas) - indeed, in any of the other sonatas. But now he has the chance to misbehave, to let totally loose with his dog-like playfulness.
On the other hand, we have the angelic Fughetta in amongst all this, and then the more serious final few variations. An epic Handelian fugue leads into the enigmatic and delicate final varation - borne out of a more sophisticated wit. Typically, the final chord of the whole work leaves everything hanging in mid-air.
Brendel, for whom Beethoven has always been a favourite, is able to bring to this piece incredible technical mastery and an utter understanding of its multifarious elements.
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by Alfred Brendel
~ Alfred Brendel
~ Alfred Brendel
~ Alfred Brendel
