Catalog Number–MC122
Number of Discs–2
Duration–158:20
Price (includes domestic shipping)–USA$13.50
Price (outside USA, includes shipping)–USA$18
"Very stimulating. There's something so committed, so urgently
experienced about [Peter] Serkin's way with the music that even if certain
things cause a raised eyebrow you can still shut your eyes and somehow
feel the composer very close.… [T]he recording is truthful. The
playing has splendid bravura and dash to it and the instrumental
sonorities in the great slow movement are revealing and occasionally
sublime."
– Gramophone
"Hearing the Hammerklavier Sonata played on a well-restored Graf fortepiano and hearing its first two movements played, very properly, at speed, is an all-too extraordinary experience."
– Gramophone
Musical Concepts is pleased to return to general availability Peter Serkin's provocative, acclaimed recordings of the final six piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven played on a restored Ludwig Graf fortepiano of the same vintage as the music itself. Originally released on the pioneering American independent label Pro Arte as the LP era came to a close, these recordings represented a major deparure for an artist best known for his probing approach to twentieth-century repertoire, with the result a startlingly "new" sound for some of the most challenging landmarks of the piano repertoire.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Sonata No.27 in e minor, Op.90
Rondo in C Major, Op.51 No.1
Piano Sonata No.30 in E Major, Op.109
Piano Sonata No.29 in B-flat Major “Hammerklavier”, Op.106
Piano Sonata No.28 in A Major, Op.101
Rondo in G Major, Op.51 No.2 in G 10:33
Piano Sonata No.31 in A Flat, Op.110
Piano Sonata No.32 in C Minor, Op.111
Peter Serkin, Conrad Graf fortepiano