Ottavio Dantone - Sonatas 8 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The young, Venezuelan pianist Walkiria Izaguirre who received her musical training in Vienna presents her debut album with a pure Beethoven program, which features an early, a middle and a late piano sonata and thereby gives an overview of the master's oeuvre. In her own words, this album is a tribute to one of the most important figures in the history of music, whose musical creativity would reach an unexpected and wonderful development towards freedom and individual expression for eternity. The sonata in F major Op. 10/2 was called one of Beethoven's most joyful works by Paul Badura-Skoda, the sonata in D major Op. 28 described by him as gentle, idyllic and light-filled to the brim, perhaps a response to the gloomier previous InchMoonlightInch sonata, a rejection of depression, a move towards friendlier climes, and is also called the InchPastoralInch sonata. Finally, the sonata Op. 109 is kept in the 'mystical' key of E major, expressing exhilaration, rapture, earthly, and heavenly love. The variation movement's theme is proof that, despite some contemporary critic's judgement, Beethoven was indeed capable of writing beautiful melodies.

Ottavio Dantone - Sonatas 7 [COMPACT DISCS] date 07/06/2004

Daniel Barenboim began his career as Inchchild prodigyInch with great technical qualities. The young pianist had studied first with Claudio Arrau, then with Edwin Fischer. He recorded this, his first LP, featuring three famous Beethoven sonatas, in 1958, when just sixteen. It can be seen as a sort of challenge show to the public that a young pianist could compete with the most famous soloists of the time. We can easily tell that the young Barenboim met that challenge; his talent, interpretations and performance technique underlining the beginning of a long artistic and human story still being told.