Complete Piano Sonatas Nos 1-32 [Blu-ray]

OVERVIEW:Daniel Barenboim memorized the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas when he was only 17 years of age, and has performed them for half a century. During that time he has recorded at least four complete cycles:(1) His first recording for Westminster is excerpted in the 3-LP set "Prodigy and Genius: Barenboim and Beethoven." One copy is currently available on eBay.(2) At the age of 24 he signed a contract with EMI to record his second cycle (1966/69), and it appeared on quality vinyl in a 1970 boxed set, used copies of which can still be found by those who seek to do so. Earlier this year, EMI re-released the cycle on CD, in a significantly better mastering than the previous 1998 CD release.(3) Metropolitan Video produced and Jean-Pierre Ponnelle directed a third cycle in various acoustically excellent and photogenic settings from 1981 to 1984, and DGG released the soundtrack on audio cassette, "digital LP" and CD (the cover photograph shows Barenboim in the same venue as the video). The whole thing appeared in a series of ten PAL laserdiscs in the UK, and two of the sonatas from this series (Appassionata and Waldstein) appeared on Teldec Warner laserdisc in the US and Japan. Now Euroarts is releasing this series in a triple blu-ray set.(4) Barenboim performed a complete cycle in a series of concerts at the Staatsoper in Berlin in June and July of 2005. EMI released the DVD and Decca the CD of these performances. The DVD is accompanied by masterclasses, but the sonatas are a little hard to locate because the concerts did not present them in numerical order.PREVIEW:Barenboim's first two cycles were prodigious, and the last one is impressive, but the third captures him at the peak of his powers. The third one now comes to us in a high-resolution audio and video transfer. Like Euroarts/Metropolitan's release of the eight last Mozart piano concertos, the complete Beethoven sonata cycle promises better sound than ever before, but compromised video quality. I gave five stars to the Mozart because the BD had better sonics than the very fine laserdisc release, and that is likely to be true again in this case. However, I objected to the "masking" of the image, in effect zooming in on the old film stock to fill the 16:9 TV screen. Unfortunately, the producers have done this again, creating jumpy motion for fingers playing on the keys. What is to be done? Use the zoom feature on your player to zoom back out again, creating a black frame all the way around the image. Then the jerky motion disappears.Like the earlier release, there is very generous timing again. Some 724 minutes (twelve hours) of programming which spread out over ten laserdiscs now finds itself inhabiting just three blu-rays. In addition to the sonatas (714 minutes), there is a ten-minute bio called "Portrait eines Musikers" (Portrait of a Musician), which also appeared on the first of the ten laserdiscs.REVIEW:In recent years I have become a fan of the fortepiano recordings of Beethoven's sonatas, particularly the SACD set by Ronald Brautigam on BIS. Barenboim's blu-ray set, recorded on the grand piano, will complement that series nicely on my shelf. I reserve the right to revise or extend my remarks upon further enjoyment of this embarrassment of riches.P.S. (8 December 2012):My copy of the set finally arrived only today. Amazon seems to have run out of copies before the pre-orders were filled. That is a worrying precedent. I was gratified to discover that, although the film has been matted for widescreen TVs, there happens be very little fast-action finger-work on screen. Director Ponnelle lingers over the walls and furnishings a lot, and frequently focuses on Barenboim's face or a general shot of the whole grand piano. Consequently, there is hardly any motion-blurring.

...if your expectations are not out of line with what is being presented.These performances were recorded in ca. 1984 on 35mm film then much later transferred to BD format, with some recordings presenting better than others as he moves from room to room in notable Vienna palaces/living spaces, changing the available light and acoustics with each passing piece. The sound quality and image quality are commensurate with a 35mm film process: if you are expecting surround DTS-HD and 4000+ pixel digital images at high frame rates from a Red Epic or an ARRI Alexa, you're probably going to be disappointed. These videos are very good 35mm quality overall, except perhaps the Appassionata in F minor, no. 23, which suffers from low-light shallow depth-of-field focus issues. The sound is in stereo format, not 5.1 or 7.1, etc.In terms of the performance itself, Barenboim has an amazingly disarming command of these compositions, once you realize that all 32 sonatas are performed from memory: over 12 hours of music that requires three BD disks of 4 hours each. His interpretations are simultaneously intriguing but also conservative (not overt), accurate to the period but not a slave to accuracy, expressive of his own musical interpretations while maintaining a faithfulness to the original compositional style achieving an overall performance credibility. Barenboim is not a "yet another Beethoven performer", but rather one having his own voice. I was amazed to hear his straightforward interpretations without obvious modern embellishment, but played on a modern Steinway D-274 with its corresponding majestic tonality, dynamics, and commanding presence, as opposed to the forte-piano of Beethoven's period--which is a great distraction when used to play these pieces. One wonders what Beethoven could have composed beyond these pieces if he had a modern grand piano and good hearing.It is also important to note that all the Beethoven sonatas are performed here in compositional sequence such that the listener witnesses the composer's maturation with each passing sonata. This is nowhere more dramatic than the composer's miraculous mixture of compositional emotiveness and power starting around the Pathétique sonata no. 8 after a largely classical early writing period.The performances here represent a five-star rating despite the noted limitations of the period's recording medium, a factor that is not taken lightly by this reviewer. Watching each passing performance itself becomes almost hypnotic, drawing in and holding the viewer's attention in ways not able to be experienced before this BD release.

Reproduce from film. Quality and angel could be better.

This complete Piano Sonatas of Beethoven...played by Daniel Baroiboim is really great.....It is Blu Ray..Daniel Bareinboim is one of the best pianists of the 1980's....His performance of all the Piano Sonatas of Beethoven is Electrifyingt...The music is good..Watching the playing is also important....Daniel Barenboim in this set of Blu Rays is one of the worlds best pianists..Electrifying!!!! Watching the playing ...Video is very important too.. I bought this set on CD a few years ago...This Blu Ray set is great..

Outstanding!

Ich bewundere Barenboim seit mehr als 40 Jahren. Es ist schlicht unglaublich, wie er auswendig alle Klaviersonaten und auch die Klavierkonzerte von Beethoven spielen kann. Immer mit Gefühl und Leidenschaft. Die Aufnahme ist sehr gut, der Ton ist ausgezeichnet, ich verstehe nicht die Rezensionen, die einen schlechten Ton erwähnen ?!

Un must-have per gli amanti della musica classica. Le registrazioni sono senza dubbio datate (lo stesso Barenboim è acora giovane), ma la trasposizione in Bluray è ottima. Unica pecca: l'audio è leggermente sfasato con il video, ma il tutto è comunque godibile senza problemi

バレンボイムのベートーベンソナタ全集はCDで愛聴していますが、映像でも欲しくなり値段も手ごろなので購入しました。41から43歳のときの映像だと思いますが、YouTubeでも視聴できる10年ほど前の演奏とはテンポも弾き方も違う演奏です。2度と同じ演奏はないということがよくわかります。映像については荘厳なお城や教会の中でのシーンですが、グランドピアノや豪華な装飾の背景も入る少し離れたところからの映像が多くちょっと残念です。やはりバレンボイムの演奏中の表情や、腕や指の使い方がじっくり楽しめるとよかったと思います。わずか3枚のBLDにベートーベンのソナタ32曲が曲順に収められているのは嬉しいです。PS. 6月2日のサントリーホールでのバレンボイムの演奏（30番、31番、32番）を聴きました。バレンボイム専用のクリス・マーネ・ストレートストラング・グランドピアノから奏でる音色は何とも言えない豊かさがあり、79歳のマエストロの音楽性に魅了されました。

The 32 Piano Sonatas - The Barenboim/Ponnelle 1983/84 Vienna PerformancesBlu-Ray 16:9 A EuroArts ReleaseReview by Roberto C.As an extension of the already elucidating comments of Barenboim’s performances and interpretations from contributors I. Giles and others, I should like to add a few other comments.First of all, for anyone with a genuine interest in the significance of the Beethoven sonata canon, this HD conversion of the near 40-yearold 35mm stock by Metropolitan Munich should be very much appreciated as a truly remarkable technical achievement. Though a compromised Blu-ray quality by today’s standards, it does quite convey the realization of the original performances for viewer satisfaction. The one significant technical problem with the lighting balance for the 23rd Sonata was already noted and apologetically explained by the producer. Barenboim in his interview explains that the Appassionata was first performed a few years before the other sonatas as a test case and it seems the lighting was not then optimised.Some Barenboim/Ponnelle BackgroundPrior to recording these 1983/84 performances Daniel Barenboim conducted the performances of Tristan for the 1981 Bayreuth Festival with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle both staging and directing these performances and apparently to remarkable success. Two years later in 1983 they collaborated again for DGG/Unitel when Ponnelle produced a film of the same Tristan at Bayreuth and Barenboim conducted. This brings us to the very same year of the official start of recording of this Beethoven sonata cycle. It would be an understatement to say that these two great artists were not acquainted with each other’s artistic abilities at that point. I believe this fact had a major significance on their mutual choice of deciding how to make these sonata performances in Beethoven’s city using the facilities of the four different Vienna palaces.As to Ponnelle’s direction of the camera work, I personally think it is outstanding in terms of matching Beethoven’s evolving keyboard style and the ambiance of the period of composition with the particular chosen rooms or halls that were used and is obviously infinitely better and grander than producing the sonatas in a recording studio. It is interesting to note that the last six major sonatas were all recorded in the grandest of these salons, I believe in the Rasumovsky Palace.Apart from the unequalled authority and virtuosity that Barenboim displays in the performance of these sonatas, Ponnelle, as a master opera director and film maker of the era of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s (the Mozart and Monteverdi operas and Tristan among others) has staged the backdrop for them in grand baroque and classical settings of these palaces in a way that I believe further complements the stature of this music and on a movement-by-movement basis. To list a few examples of Ponnelle’s conception, there is the camera work that infuses the solemnity of the Marcia Funebre of Sonata 12, or the almost opposite display of grandeur of the backdrop for the Maestoso opening of Sonata 32. And I must mention the unquestionable infusion of theatricality in the Rondo of the Waldstein 21 – an emphatic statement of Beethoven’s sheer optimism and joy from his ‘middle’ period of composition (frankly this performance is just absolutely marvelous to my ears and eyes, this one!) There are many other examples to be found in this collaborative set but for me none of these detract but rather enhance the experience of listening and viewing these great works. In the end all of this makes this disk set something very unique and anyone in admiration of Beethoven’s keyboard compositions should absolutely not pass it up.On a last but amusing note (no pun), this edition of the sonatas apparently sees fit to pay great homage to Beethoven`s old teacher, all the way to the 32nd degree!. What would old Haydn have to say about all of these dedications, we wonder? And how totally amazed would he have been if he heard just the latter ones!

I own a fair few Beethoven Sonata cycles, including Barenboim's other video cycle for EMI in 2005. That was good. This is absolutely excellent. The tempos are much more considered, the delicacy over the keyboard reaches an extremely high level, and the sound of the Steinway is, as always, wonderful.As for the filming, this is where this collection, directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, really shines over the Andy Sommer directed EMI cycle. The camera angles are well chosen, the grand rooms in which the cycle is filmed are lovely to look at, and the piano is positioned creatively for the camera (we have an early camera angle watching through a mirror.)The HD remastering is very well done, the only part where the picture falls down is the 1st movement of he Appassionata, but this is explained in the booklet notes. The sound is beautifully clear and rich at all times.Musically, Barenboim is in the 3rd of 4 sonata cycles here, and for me, this is his best, from the lovely, flowing adagio cantabile of the Pathetique, to the tower of power that is the Hammerklavier, he handles all with aplomb.Overall, a collection I absolutely love, well worth the money, and I shall be enjoying it time and time again!