Latest Release
- DEC 2, 2024
- 1 Song
- Classical Piano-Vol.1 · 2024
- Obras Maestras de la Música Clásica, Vol. 2 / Ludwing Van Beethoven · 1958
- Piano Favorites, Vol. 1 · 2018
- Classical Piano-Vol.1 · 2024
- 35 Masterpieces of Classical Music · 2016
- Ode to Joy - Single · 2021
- Moonlighting - Single · 2021
- Piano Collection: Vol. 1 · 2024
- Classical Piano-Vol.1 · 2024
- Bgm from Tv Series "the Eminence in Shadow" (Original Soundtrack) · 2023
Essential Albums
- Like his late quartets, Beethoven’s last five piano sonatas take form into new territory. The A Major (No. 28) is the most conventional, but you can already feel the ambition of utterance before the onslaught of the mighty “Hammerklavier” (No. 29), which Igor Levit, in his mid-twenties when this recording was made, takes on with astounding confidence. The final three sonatas find Beethoven refining and concentrating, before offering the essence of his message in long, powerful closing movements. By the last sonata—No. 32 in the special key, for him, of C minor—he has reduced the form to two movements and explores a rhythmic language that seems to prefigure jazz. This is sublime music and sublime playing.
- Beethoven’s colossal contribution to music resulted in every form he tackled being extended, developed, and re-invented—and these two works are proof. His most famous piano concerto, No. 5, the Emperor Concerto, crowns his so-called Middle Period, and his Piano Sonata No. 28 (of 32) belongs to a group that transformed the piano sonata into something epic and exploratory. French pianist Hélène Grimaud offers performances marked by delicacy, power, drive, and a sense of inevitability: a very modern-sounding Beethoven.
- Premiered in 1805, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, “Eroica” was a game changer. The symphony as a form would never be the same again. Originally dedicated to Napoleon, the work celebrates mankind’s extraordinary power, but when Napoleon had himself crowned emperor, the dedication was scratched out. It’s a huge, ambitious, and magnificent creation, massive in scale, culminating in a theme-and-variation finale of shattering power. Daniel Barenboim’s Staatskapelle Berlin recording from 1999 rises powerfully to the symphony’s challenges and—broad in tempo and fully alive to the work’s drama—is a pretty magnificent achievement, drawing impressive playing from this Berlin ensemble.
- This is one of those truly classic recordings, as powerful today as the day it was made. It landed in record stores in 1975 and was immediately hailed as an outstanding work. It also established Carlos Kleiber, son of another great conductor, Erich, as a musician of extraordinary talent. Collaborating with an orchestra that knows the work as well as any, Kleiber achieves what every conductor strives for—to make the music sound fresh and new. From the first bar, this performance crackles with electricity, and it surges on, buoyed by a very special magic. The Seventh also receives a performance of tremendous energy and, like the Fifth, it’s stunningly well played.
- As did so many of his works, Beethoven’s only violin concerto, premiered in 1806, changed the scale and perception of the form; its first movement, at about 25 minutes in duration, would accommodate some of Mozart’s in their entirety. But it’s not just about length. Beethoven’s work has symphonic ambitions, and its message is altogether weightier. It is, perhaps, the first great Romantic violin concerto, and its masterpiece status comes across impressively in Itzhak Perlman and Carlo Maria Giulini’s Gramophone- and Grammy Award-winning 1981 recording. Playing with his customary style and flair, Perlman is wonderfully expressive yet also highly dramatic, and Giulini is a superb partner. A classic recording.
- The drama, the despair, the utter joy—this is Beethoven in all his life-enriching, inventive glory.
- Uncovering Beethoven: Discover the power and vision of his orchestral writing.
- Uncovering Beethoven: Savor a master at his ingenious and emotive best.
- Uncovering Beethoven: Delve into works and recordings that let soloists shine.
- Take a break from the thunder and fury, and sink into some of the composer’s most beautiful works.
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About Ludwig van Beethoven
The most powerful creative force that classical music has ever known, Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany in 1770, to a father who was a tenor. Having impressed the local nobility and audiences with his prodigious gifts as a pianist and improviser, the young Beethoven was drawn to the greater professional opportunities offered by Vienna. He settled there in 1792, first studying with Haydn and others, then setting himself up as a pianist and composer. Beethoven’s masterly performing skills and his music’s emotional depth and rhythmic energy soon made his name across Europe. The third of his nine symphonies, the “Eroica,” was completed in 1804, hugely expanding the dimensions of the genre. Within the next 10 years, Beethoven had completed an extraordinary body of work. A further five symphonies (Nos. 4-8) and four concertos (two for piano including No. 5, the “Emperor,” the Triple Concerto, and the Violin Concerto) joined his only opera, Fidelio, which he worked on for a decade, as well as additional orchestral, chamber, and piano music. His increasing and eventual total deafness would end his appearances as a pianist, yet he found he could still compose; before his death in 1827, he wrote some of his greatest works. Among these were a Ninth Symphony with its unprecedented choral finale, a large-scale Missa Solemnis for chorus and orchestra, and a final sequence of string quartets (Nos. 12-16) and piano sonatas (Nos. 27-32).
- BORN
- 1770
- GENRE
- Classical