Beethoven Sonatas

I didn't take the time to listen though all of Beethoven's piano sonatas until I was in my mid-forties. Some I already knew, but I was unfamiliar with the majority. I found I liked more of them than not, which led me to ponder acquiring a box-set of the things. The one that was on offer at Amazon at an advantageous price at the right time was the not-quite-complete nine-disc set performed by Emil Gilels, who'd recorded twenty-seven of the thirty-two sonatas before his sudden death in 1985.

I'd seen Gilels' name mentioned as being among the finest of 20th-Century pianists, and knew his Beethoven cycle was highly-rated by many aficionados. It's not hard for even a know-nothing listener like me to be impressed by his playing on such old chestnuts as the 'Appassionata' or 'Waldstein' sonatas (nos. 21 & 23 respectively), and, more generally, he seldom fails to please when the notes are flying thick & fast. In no. 14 ('Moonlight'), the most famous of all the sonatas, the first two movements seem plainly-presented and, to me, relatively uninvolving, but, by the end of the presto agitato final movement, I'm ready to leap to my feet & start applauding.

Elsewhere, even an interpreter of Gilels' calibre hasn't been up to persuading me of the charms of LvB's earliest sonatas, nor convincing me that the epic 'Hammerklavier' (no. 29) sonata isn't overblown & excessive. On the other hand, his performance of some of the others did open my tin ears to the delights they contain: no. 27 being a notable example. While I scarcely need all nine of these CDs, there are three or four of them I wouldn't be without.

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