128 CD / Ludwig van Beethoven: Early Sonatas for Piano
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"Someone, who really understands Beethoven" (Pizzicato)
8 reviews for 128 CD / Ludwig van Beethoven: Early Sonatas for Piano
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Die Rheinpfalz –
The interpretations of Beethoven’s early sonatas—including Op. 2, Nos. 2 and 3, as well as Op. 13 (the Pathétique, which only marginally fits this category)—released by TACET, a label renowned for its natural-sounding recordings, reveal pianist Markus Schirmer as an exponent of a balanced interpretive approach. With a full, rounded tone, virtuosic accents, and expressive middle movements, the technically accomplished pianist delivers compelling performances. Despite the seemingly overwhelming discographic legacy, Schirmer offers nuanced insights in the details. He avoids the rhythmic radicalism of Gulda, the introspective brooding of the Arrau tradition, and the romanticizing tendencies of Kempf. Instead, he favors bright tonal colors and, when called for, can unleash dazzling virtuosity. With this overall engaging recording, the Austrian pianist establishes himself as a representative of historically informed yet reflective piano playing, leaving listeners eager for his future releases.
gt
Piano News 2/10 –
Markus Schirmer, the pianist from Graz, is one of those artists who seems to engage in deep reflection before sitting down at the instrument—especially before committing to a recording. His selection of three early Beethoven piano sonatas appears to suit him perfectly. The intimacy and uncluttered directness with which Schirmer performs these works may not reinvent them, but they make for consistently compelling listening. For this pianist, the focus is not on the extroverted portrayal of the composer’s undeniable Sturm und Drang phase, but rather on the structure, which he illuminates with fascinating clarity. His masterful handling of accents and dynamic contrasts—such as in the finale of the A-major Sonata—comes almost as a given for a pianist of his caliber. His true individuality shines in the Pathétique. Here, the listener might initially miss the grand sweeping arcs and vehemence that characterize most interpretations of this sonata. Yet Schirmer’s approach is coherent: he delves deeply into Beethoven’s train of thought and, above all, does not rush the Allegro di molto e con brio of the first movement, as so many other pianists do. He then delivers a beautifully lyrical and sensitive middle movement. The finale, by contrast, is impetuous, yet even here, he avoids excessive showmanship, instead offering a skillfully seasoned flow of ideas. Schirmer plays a Beethoven that cuts to the core, is thoroughly enjoyable, and stands as absolutely competitive with comparable recordings.
Carsten Dürer
Pizzicato –
Someone Who Understands Beethoven
Markus Schirmer comes from Graz. He now releases with TACET a flawless recording of three Beethoven sonatas, of which, however, only the A major Sonata op. 2,2 and the C major Sonata op. 2,3 can be described as “early” works. One must assume that the C minor Sonata op. 13 (“Pathétique”) was added, if only for commercial reasons, in order to have at least one of Beethoven’s most famous piano works included on the CD. This one impresses right from the start through the determination, the resonant, almost aggressive touch, which indeed lends the introductory movement of the “Pathétique” a powerful and striking pathos, but also charm and esprit. He creates the counterpart entirely without pathos in the famous “Adagio cantabile,” producing an atmosphere full of tonal beauty and restraint. The Rondo confirms his brilliance and superiority as a pianist. The A major Sonata makes one sit up and listen with its sparkling playing and a dynamism that gives the opening movement a constant tension. Even more successful appears the “Allegro con brio” of the C major Sonata, through the way Schirmer sets contrasting effects against one another and finds very personal and elegant solutions. These are particularly impressive and sensitive in the following “Adagio,” which I would gladly regard as the highlight of the entire CD – a CD that presents to us an unusually impetuous and witty, passionate and poetic Beethoven. Schirmer, who plays on an excellently tuned Fazioli grand piano, confirms that the last word on Beethoven has not yet been spoken – and that he himself intends to have his say. He should do so. We will gladly listen.
GW
Klassik heute –
After the two piano quartets by Mozart with the Gaede Trio, the Graz pianist Markus Schirmer releases a second Tacet CD. It contains three “early” sonatas, whereby the Pathétique (op. 13), by virtue of its substance, its extravagant (and at the same time backward-looking) formal design, and its pianistic explosiveness, can in fact already be counted among the “middle” Beethoven. In light of the listening and experiential impression of the meanwhile vastly expanded Beethoven discography, Schirmer’s idiosyncratic rendering of the A major Sonata (op. 2,2) seems to me the most suitable and most revealing entry point into his imaginative world. He shapes the staccato and the scale connection of the short-winded, signal-like main theme lightly and buoyantly—less hardened and mechanical than Friedrich Gulda in his famous complete Amadeo recording, softer than Stephen Kovacevich in his EMI version.
Schirmer—this applies to the entire recording—does not present himself as the ruler over Beethovenian darkness and shadowings. He advocates a conversational approach, reflective in the slow movements of the sonatas op. 2 Nos. 2 and 3, but not—like Claudio Arrau once did—a brooding, oppressive heavyweight classicist. Dynamic, quasi solo/tutti contrasts, for example in the first movement of the C major Sonata, are kept within necessary limits, not—as with Richter in his Eurodisc recording—exploited to the very end of the volume scale. Overall, a recording that is both appealing and exciting in its purity and pianistic naturalness, and thus a distinctive testimony to Austrian piano artistry at a high intellectual and technical level. (…)
Insgesamt eine in ihrer Lauterkeit und pianistischen Selbstverständlichkeit an- und aufregende Einspielung, und damit ein markantes Leibenszeichen österreichischer Klavierkunst auf hohem gedanklichem und technischem Niveau. (…)
Peter Cossé
Tiroler Tageszeitung –
Blossoming, Abyssal
It is no exaggeration when Markus Schirmer is described in the booklet of his newly released CD as “one of the most sensitive and exciting pianists of his generation.” After Schubert and Haydn, he has now recorded three piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven for the exquisite label Tacet: op. 13 in C minor, the Pathétique, op. 2 No. 2 in A major, and op. 2 No. 3 in C major. Schirmer carries within him the spontaneity and intellectuality of the young Beethoven, and in his fingers the latter’s brio, humor, and tenderness. His analytical work on the sonatas has shed every trace of effort and communicates itself in a play of forms that is both relaxed and serious. The Graz-born pianist, from the Austrian school of piano playing, conveys—sonically fascinating (and uniquely captured)—a spectrum ranging from a classicist tone to one that blossoms into early Romanticism. Passionate, probing, searching, and in Beethoven’s self-forgetfulness, profound and abyssal.
u.st.
Salzburger Nachrichten –
The Graz pianist Markus Schirmer casts a passionate gaze on early Beethoven sonatas. On the Fazioli grand, he makes the experimental nature of the Pathétique and the sonatas op. 2/2 and 3 audibly clear through emphatic articulation: not with aggressive directness, but with power, energy, and poetry from within. Historically, this image draws nourishment from Haydn’s perspective. The compelling dramaturgical stringency leads to a vividly formulated, richly shaped interpretation of Beethoven. Technically, such an exciting exploration is rendered present thanks to the sovereign mastery of the “Tacet” label (distribution: Weiß), with love for detail and a sense of the whole: a CD that makes one sit up and listen.
hb
Thema plus –
After his acclaimed recordings of works by Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert, the Graz pianist Markus Schirmer now ventures into the innermost sanctuary of the piano literature of the Viennese Classics, namely into the cosmos of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. With vital curiosity, emotional closeness, and spontaneous intellectuality, the Graz Art University professor approaches three sonatas of the young Beethoven, and once one has grown accustomed to the glassy sound of the Fazioli grand in the upper registers, listening becomes an exciting journey of discovery.
The slow movements become impressive documents of timeless absorption, above all the moving Adagio cantabile of the Pathétique Sonata, in whose opening movement Schirmer had penetrated to extreme emotional outbursts without thereby indulging in the unbearable cliché of “roughness.”
Since wit and humor also have their place, one may already place Schirmer within the great Austrian tradition of a Serkin, Schnabel, or Brendel. This new CD is to be recommended above all because it conveys new insights without at the same time breaking with tradition in a forced and mannered way.
Harald Haslmayr
Kleine Zeitung –
Demonic Storm (…) The newly released CD, distinguished by a very natural and present sound image, shows the 40-year-old pianist from Graz at the height of his art. He savors the elemental sound effects and rhythmic energizations of Beethoven’s most popular piano sonata, contrasts the demonic storm of the opening movement with soulful sensitivity in the Adagio cantabile, before, in the Rondo, giving free rein to despair, brightened only by glimmers of hope. Although he chooses rapid tempi for the Pathétique, one never has the impression that the C minor Sonata is being rushed through, for Schirmer’s virtuosic technique allows him, even at top speed, to shape every detail clearly.
Passionately, Schirmer chisels the Sturm und Drang of the young Beethoven into the keys in his sonatas op. 2. He underscores the breaking open of conventions, modeled on the late works of Haydn, emphasizes the fractures, and looks courageously into the abysses. On the other hand, he performs the lyrical Adagio of the C major Sonata with such wonderful calm, painful intimacy, and delicate sensitivity that he transports the listener into a better world, from which the virtuosity of the finale brings him back again.
Ernst Naredi-Rainer