by Guytano Parks
Hans von Bülow called them “The New Testament” of music (Bach’s The Well Tempered Clavier being The Old Testament) and was the first to perform all thirty-two in a single concert cycle from memory. Camille Saint-Saëns offered to play any one of the thirty-two from memory as an encore in his public recital debut at the age of ten. Artur Schnabel was the first since von Bülow to play them all from memory in a single concert cycle and was the first to make a complete recording of the monumental collection in 1927. Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas have served as a barometer of musical and scholarly achievement in the piano world since their creation between 1795 and 1822, and continue to fascinate and captivate both musical intellectuals and dilettantes.
Tuesday morning’s Competition Conversation, the fourth CIPC “Festival Event” held in the Recital Hall at The Cleveland Museum of Art was entitled “The Art of Performing Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas”. Featured speaker Peter Takács, Professor of Piano at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, knows his subject intimately as he conquered the mountain as well, having recorded the entire cycle of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas on the CAMBRIA label. [Read more…]