BENJAMIN EALOVEGA
BEETHOVEN 250
Arc of
continuity Jonathan Biss’s landmark Beethoven cycle gives equal weight to all 32 sonatas while revealing some surprising connections with other pieces by the composer. The result, says Stephen Wigler, builds on the illustrious discographies of great pianists of the past
W
hen Artur Schnabel was only a few years older than Jonathan Biss is now (39), the Austrian pianist embarked on the odyssey that resulted, roughly 10 years later, in what is arguably his crowning achievement: the first recorded cycle of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas. Schnabel completed this mammoth project in 1935, following his performances of four cycles of the sonatas in Berlin (1927 and 1932), London (1933) and New York (1934). Biss has recently accomplished a similar feat in roughly the same amount of time. His project to record the complete Beethoven piano sonatas over the course of nine years has culminated in the release of Volume 9 (Opp 10/3, 31/3 and 111), and the box set is due out this spring. When I ask Biss to name the pianist who most influenced his Beethoven recordings, the answer is prompt. While he admires the Beethoven playing of several other pianists – among them, Rudolf Serkin and Leon Fleisher, with whom Biss began studying when he was 17 – ‘it was,’ he says, ‘the Schnabel recordings that continue to have the most impact upon me.’
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January 2020 International Piano
He is more hesitant when pressed to say what has been the most difficult part of his Beethoven journey. Although keen to avoid appearing immodest, he admits that at some level he found it easy. ‘Life with Beethoven is not a matter of choice,’ he tells me, speaking by telephone from Philadelphia, where he teaches at the Curtis Institute. ‘The personality [of Beethoven] is so overwhelming that you cannot help but be drawn into it. I knew I wanted to record Beethoven before I was four – when I heard my mother [the celebrated Romanian-born, Israeli violinist, Miriam Freed] rehearse one of Beethoven’s Opus 23 sonatas. Being engaged with Beethoven has always made me feel more alive. Engagement with his art leads to ever greater engagement.’ By the time he reached his early twenties, Biss had scored major successes with some of the most important pieces by Beethoven’s predecessors (Mozart’s final concertos) and successors (Chopin’s late masterpieces, Schumann’s Fantasy and Debussy’s Estampes.) Nevertheless, he recognises that his decision to devote so much time to Beethoven has made him ‘miss a lot of pieces’ by other composers he might otherwise have played. ‘But what I’ve missed is
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