Pno Sons Comp (Ltd.Ed)

Personally, I think his style is just right for Beethoven (but perhaps just a bit much when he plays Mozart). I'm very glad that I bought this set, but some might prefer Brendell's (Phillips) or Kempff's (DG) more sedate versions.

Others should listen better. Most of Barenboim's readings lack any of the composer's intentions and don't even approach the Beethoven recordings of Schnabel, Arrau, Gilels, Backhaus, Kempff, Brendel and Kovacevich, to name a few. I really wonder how many of the other reviewers have actually listened closely to some of these names. As for Barenboim, I find his playing merely frustrating and boring. There are way too many reasons to leave this set in stores and pay a little more for much better, more enduring and truly satisfying results.

Barenboim's most irritating habit is his un-masculine and ultra-polite treatment of a lot of pieces. This weird behaviour makes many pieces sound like slobbery fluff. Beethoven was one of the most masculine composers around, but Barenboim often plays like a dull old lady (no offence to the female sex!) who doesn't take any risks. He brutally ignores Beethoven's staccato marks and many of his dynamic accents at any possible moment, and as a result many pieces sound sticky, soft and uninspired. The minuet of op.54 is the worst example: the staccato dance after a minute is really perverse. And fairly every phrase in the first 13 sonatas and almost EVERY slow movement in the set is legato and enormously carefully played, which takes all the vigour out of the pieces. Lots of slow movements are just soft, softer, softest without any real poetry. Any kind of spirit is eliminated and the result is mostly extremely dull and not asking to be heard again. I don't hear any wit or freshness here. This is Beethoven at its very easiest.

And he's about the slowest Beethoven player I have heard! This just highlights all of Barenboim's weaknesses in every possible way. The slow movements can't be slow enough for him, and a hand full of normally fast movements too. The final of the Waldstein suffers greatly from the absurdly slow tempo, and lacks any kind of majesty. The Pastorale is uninspiring throughout here. The wicked op.78 sonata is unbelievably tame. Etcetera. But the slow movements suffer most of all: Barenboim tends to drag these so extremely, and plays with the aforementioned lack of masculinity, that he turns a lot of them into dreadful and tiring wastes of time. He plays them much more slowly than even Claudio Arrau. The fantastic Largo of the 7th sonata simply becomes a perversity in Barenboim's reading. So do the slow parts of the late sonatas.

To make matters worse, Barenboim also shows his other extreme side. In many middle and late sonatas, he bangs so awfully at the louder chords that I can hardly bear listening to them. Which doesn't make him a 'masculine' player yet: the loud bangs are fully random and played without any 'content'. Pianists like Kovacevich, Backhaus and Gilels are often violent too, but they can put their playing in a context and make it sound convincingly. They never sound exaggerated. Additionally, they never play at the stupidly loud levels of Barenboim. I've never heard anyone who brings off the Moonlight's final so strangely aggressively and ugly. The Appassionata is an atrocity throughout, not only because of Barenboim's aforementioned dull playing but also because he pounds on the chords of the outer movements like an angry elephant. The final of the Tempest is destructed by the same kind of stupid attacks. The Allegro of op.111 is all noise and nothing else. This isn't 'funny' at all, which others claim. It 'is' allowed to play Beethoven aggressively, but only with good reasons, which Barenboim doesn't have.

And with that, we come to his most striking deficiency: Barenboim's playing doesn't hold together. I already said that he plays loudly without any reason, but I couldn't detect much of a 'higher plan' behind anything else either. Simply said: he has no character (which is perfectly portrayed by the picture of a very bored Barenboim that covers every cd sleeve). Playing with 'passion' is not the same as playing with the extreme dynamic range of Barenboim. Just an example: in the final of the Les Adieux sonata op.81a, what is he 'saying' in the various little themes, or does he even connect the themes? No. He just plays all notes fast and aggressively, but he does not have the least sense of building a piece out of all these notes. Any of the other pianists mentioned above will do better. And as I said, this is just one example, for I have had the same feeling in nearly every sonata. Barenboim plays all the notes but he's generally unable to 'connect' these notes and different themes, and therefore fails to give the music a real spirit, drama, a soul or whatever you want to call it. In Beethoven's most profound works, most significantly the late sonatas, this is disastrous and Barenboim's late sonatas are even worse than Charles Rosen's (which means quite something)!

Concluding, I cannot say anything else than that you should avoid this set. Barenboim is very attractive to people who don't want to 'explore' Beethoven but just like to take it easy. Those who do care about more than just superficiality, should look above anyone else for Claudio Arrau, who is superior to Barenboim in every single note. His set costs more but has so much more content! Other possibilities are Kovacevich, Backhaus and Gilels, because they convey real passion and poetry into the music. (...)

Barenboim's set, however, is a joke. Avoid it.

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