Album

Listeners who have been following German pianist Gerhard Oppitz's ongoing cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas may have an idea of what to expect from this group of works from the tail end of the composer's middle period: Oppitz is a careful, perceptive, somewhat restrained pianist who thinks through unusual relationships among movements and among the various parts of an individual movement. He is technically well equipped but neither cultivates a strong personal style nor is much concerned with emotional impact. The results in this group of sonatas are positive but mixed. In the Piano Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90, and the Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101, two works whose abrupt concision points directly toward Beethoven's late style, he delivers strong performances that reveal small details of the music. The second movement of the two-movement Op. 90 is especially fine. The movement opens with a naïve tune that could have come out of one of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words but soon carries its strange, remote realms. The thorny details and shifts in expression are major pitfalls for the pianist, and it was the sense of trajectory he brought to this kind of movement that made people acclaim the Beethoven recordings of Artur Schnabel. With Oppitz you can have a coherent interpretation without the missed notes. Not so successful is the Piano Sonata No. 26 in E flat major, Op. 81a, "Les Adieux." This truly Romantic work, with expressions of farewell and reunion explicitly written into the score, lacks a sense of sweeping emotion in Oppitz' chilly reading, which loses the forest for the trees. The Piano Sonata No. 25 in G major, Op. 79, one of Beethoven's works for piano students, makes a brisk curtain-raiser, and the sound, recorded in a riding stadium that gives a slightly clearer, closer approach to the piano than does a big concert hall, continues to be a point in favor of the Oppitz series. Especially recommended to listeners who prefer the intellectual Beethoven to the Romantic Beethoven.

© James Manheim, All Music Guide

CD 1
Ludwig van Beethoven Composer Piano Sonata No.25 in G, Op.79 ('Cuckoo') Work Recorded 2005 9:00 Gerhard Oppitz Piano
1	1.Presto alla tedesca	4:19			$0.99
2	2.Andante	2:45			$0.99
3	3.Vivace	1:56			$0.99
Ludwig van Beethoven Composer Piano Sonata No.26 in Eb, Op.81a ('Les Adieux') Work Recorded 2006 17:10 Gerhard Oppitz Piano
4	1.Adagio. Allegro ('Les Adieux')	7:07			$1.49
5	2.Andante espressivo ('L'Absence')	3:58			$0.99
6	3.Vivacissimamente ('Le Retour')	6:05			$0.99
Ludwig van Beethoven Composer Piano Sonata No.27 in E-, Op.90 Work Recorded 2004 15:10 Gerhard Oppitz Piano
7	1.Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchhaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck	6:00			$0.99
8	2.Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorzutragen	9:10			$1.49
Ludwig van Beethoven Composer Piano Sonata No.28 in A, Op.101 Work Recorded 2005 21:10 Gerhard Oppitz Piano
9	1.Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung (Allegretto ma non troppo)	4:20			$0.99
10	2.Lebhaft, marschmäßig (Vivace alla marcia)	5:51			$0.99
11	3.Langsam und sehnsuchtsvoll (Adagio ma non troppo, con affetto)	3:20			$0.99
12	4.Geschwind, doch nicht zu sehr, und mit Entschlossenheit (Allegro)	7:39			$1.49