The Complete Piano Sonatas (plus Fantasia) ~REPACK~

Haydn's keyboard oeuvre consists of more than 60 sonatas and about 10 keyboard pieces as well as more than 40 trios and divertimenti with solo keyboard, plus half-dozen concertos for harpsichord, piano and organ. It is possible to follow the extraordinarily fast development of the Viennese keyboard music after 1750 in those works and their musical language, just as one can easily reconstruct the progressive substitution of the harpsichord and clavichord with the pianoforte. The piano sonatas are particularly characteristic witnesses of these changes.

The Complete Piano Sonatas (plus Fantasia)

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is No.14 in C-sharp minor and is one of his most famous Piano Sonatas, particularly the first movement which we present here. This movement is sometimes labelled "Quasi una fantasia" (like a Fantasy) though it doesn't suggest moonlight in any way. Rather it is quite a dark quiet movement with an insistent triplet rhythm, and the challenge for the pianist is to keep this even with just the right nuances of crescendo and rubato in appropriate places. We have included some suggested pedalling suitable for a modern piano, though the aim is to achieve a smooth sustained legato without muddying the harmonies. Download the sheet musc, midi and mp3 files using the links in the left-hand menu. The video below illustrates the music using a piano roll animation, while below that you can play the mp3 file and see the sheet music prior to downloading.From Sheet Music Plus you can get the complete Piano Sonatas by Beethoven in 2 volumes as follows: Volume 1 and Volume 2. On mfiles we have arrangements of the Moonlight Sonata for guitar by Tárrega and for clarinet and piano by Jim Paterson.Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (1st movement) for piano - VideoHere is a video of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (1st movement) for piano:var cid='7254244225';var pid='ca-pub-3406387483437091';var slotId='div-gpt-ad-mfiles_co_uk-medrectangle-3-0';var ffid=1;var alS=1021%1000;var container=document.getElementById(slotId);var ins=document.createElement('ins');ins.id=slotId+'-asloaded';ins.className='adsbygoogle ezasloaded';ins.dataset.adClient=pid;ins.dataset.adChannel=cid;ins.style.display='block';ins.style.minWidth=container.attributes.ezaw.value+'px';ins.style.width='100%';ins.style.height=container.attributes.ezah.value+'px';container.style.maxHeight=container.style.minHeight+'px';container.style.maxWidth=container.style.minWidth+'px';container.appendChild(ins);(adsbygoogle=window.adsbygoogle[]).push();window.ezoSTPixelAdd(slotId,'stat_source_id',44);window.ezoSTPixelAdd(slotId,'adsensetype',1);var lo=new MutationObserver(window.ezaslEvent);lo.observe(document.getElementById(slotId+'-asloaded'),attributes:true);Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (1st movement) for piano - MP3 & Midi filesThe audio controls below allow you to play the mp3 version of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (1st movement) for piano or you can download the MP3 file. You can also download the midi version of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (1st movement) for piano or alternatively edit/play the midi file.

Actually, Gould did record some of the standard repertoire, including a complete set of the Mozart piano sonatas and many of Beethoven's. While they were far from idiomatic and were generally written off as perverse, for those who already know these works Gould's approach can be a revelation. For example, Gould sped up the first movement of Beethoven's “Moonlight” Sonata and drained it of inflection in order to suggest a wistful dance rather than wallowing in the usual melancholy despair. On the other hand, he decelerated the first movement of the “Appassionata” Sonata to barely half its standard pace, exaggerating its pauses and bass-heavy sonority to turn its drama into very heavy melodrama.

Gould often cited this massive final compendium of Bach's art as his favorite work, yet he never made a complete recording (nor, for that matter, ever performed it as a whole). Perhaps that's fitting - after all, Bach died leaving it incomplete. This disc assembles all of Gould's partial tapings. Gould was a proficient organist and issued the first nine pieces in 1962 but he never resumed the project (nor made any further organ records). Curiously, he plays mostly in a stark, staccato manner without any pedal, as if to coax the king of keyboard instruments to disavow its legato nature. Of the piano excerpts, the most enthralling is the final and incomplete Fugue XIV, which Gould plays with a seething, wrenching spirituality. He revered this piece as the one in which Bach disavowed the stylistic contraints of his time to produce a pure and deeply personal statement of just who he really was as an artist. Gould cited as the most beautiful moment in all music the point here when Bach introduces a theme of notes corresponding to the letters of his own name. Incidentally, this performance was filmed and is included as one of the bonus video tracks on The Gould Variations (Sony SM2K 89344); to see him utterly transported as he delves into this monumental piece draws the viewer into Gould's special, private world and immeasurably enhances an understanding of the depth of his commitment to his art.

These transport us back to a former time far removed from ours, before records, broadcasting or even efficient transportation. In Liszt's era, the vast majority of music lovers who wanted to hear a particular orchestral work had two choices: wait patiently for a local or visiting ensemble to program it (and continue to wait, perhaps in vain, to hear it again) or play it themselves, often in the form of a piano adaptation. Although Liszt was known for virtuostic “paraphrases,” his transcriptions of the Beethoven symphonies are relatively straightforward. Gould apparently intended at one point to record them all but only got to the Fifth and the first movement of the Sixth. (The CD of the complete “Pastorale” is from a CBC radio broadcast.) Tempos tend to be strict, but not obsessively so, relying instead on subtle inflection and tone color to underline the structure. The Scene by the Brook, in particular, is extremely deliberate (nearly 21 minutes, as opposed to a standard 13 or so) and assumes an exquisite dream-like quality. Of course, it's easier to take such risks as a soloist, and the only comparable effect I've encountered among orchestral performances is Celibidache's 1993 concert (on EMI 56840), but it's “only” 16 minutes long. While Gould disparaged Liszt's transcriptions as an essentially impossible translation from orchestra to piano, the Fifth, in particular, succeeds quite well (and Gould only "cheated" in the finale by doubling himself into four-hands to thicken the texture). And speaking of disparagement, Gould's original album notes to the LP of the Fifth (Columbia MS 7095), poorly abridged in the CD booklet to miss most of its tongue-in-cheek essence, consisted of "reviews" (which he wrote himself) mostly panning his performance of this very work. The first, purporting to be from a snooty English journal, concludes: "Mr. Gould has been absent from British platforms these past few years and if this new CBS release is indicative of his current musical predilections, perhaps it is just as well."

Gould called Mozart a bad composer (and devoted an entire radio show to proving it). He claimed to like only the early sonatas, condemning the rest as empty theatrical gestures and cliches of self-parody. Yet, he recorded the complete set of sonatas (on Sony SM4K 52627), including the late ones in which he overcame his distaste largely by ignoring Mozart's tempo and expressive indications; while Gould claimed he was having fun with these pieces, they emerged cold, charmless and shallow. In these earlier recordings from January 1958, he plays middle works with energy and focus, although the fugue is rather severe. Gould claimed to much prefer Haydn as a crafting more individualistic pieces, and his performance here is indeed full of brio and enthusiasm. The c minor was the only Mozart concerto Gould ever performed; the recording is a beauty, even though Gould couldn't resist helping out the deficient composer by fleshing out the left hand part (which he felt Mozart had ignored in favor of the orchestral harmonization) and adding lots of extra ornamentation. Incidentally, its companion on the original issue was the Schoenberg Piano Concerto, surely one of the most bizarre couplings in LP history. Yet, in his album notes Gould related the two works as representing the terminal positions of the traditional piano concerto, illustrating the transition into and out of the grand manner. While Gould never really got around to discussing how the Schoenberg Concerto fulfilled the role he had assigned it, he expounded at some length about how the Mozart fuses the Baroque contrast of solo and tutti with the emerging trend toward symphonic development; the resultant tension between magnificent orchestral writing and an unimaginative solo part yields the model that was to serve as the virtuoso vehicle for the Romantic era (which Gould generally disparaged).

According to Gould maven Michael Stegemann's liner notes, this album was to have launched a new phase of Gould's recording career, supplementing his Columbia catalog with new series for Deutsche Grammophon aimed at the European market. Among the new projects were to have been boxes collecting the complete Haydn piano sonatas of each decade. Although negotiations lapsed, this single set was completed for Columbia. Notwithstanding his contempt for Mozart and his disinterest in the classical period in general, Gould claimed to love Haydn's sonatas as beautiful, innovative experiments. The late ones heard here are full-blooded and crisp, without even a hint of repose or sentiment, and boast the same crystal-clear lines, astoundingly precise articulation and occasionally blinding speed of his Bach. They're matched by the 1981 recording, Gould's first in digital sound (actually in pulse-code modulation, a somewhat primitive forebear of current technology, but whose harsh clarity provides a fine complement to Gould's playing). The only drawback is the timing, just 80 minutes sprawled over a full-priced 2-CD set. But it's a wonderful, tantalizing glimpse of what undoubtedly would have been a fabulous survey of the Haydn sonatas. Incidentally, the Sonata # 49 is one of the very few Gould remakes (of a 1958 recording issued on LP only in mono but released in stereo for the first time in the Glenn Gould Edition, SMK 52626); the remake is more heavily inflected and with a far faster finale, leaving behind the last vestige of the rococo feel of the earlier version. 041b061a72