Word: beethoven
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...first time since the late Artur Schnabel's memorable performances of 1932, all 32 of the Beethoven piano sonatas have been recorded (for Decca) by one man. The pianist: Germany's Wilhelm Kempff, 56. In Paris last fall, Kempff played the complete Beethoven cycle in recital, and Paris' critics forthwith ranked him ahead of Schnabel, Backhaus and Serkin. For the time being, at least, U.S. Beethoven fans will have to appraise his works from recordings. Like his fellow German pianist, Walter Gieseking, Kempff chose to go on playing in Germany under Hitler, now seems disinclined to risk...
...Lippmann has spent his life among important people. He was fortunate in his beginnings. His parents grew up in that highly literate wave of immigration that a century ago brought to America the civilization of the Rhineland, Beethoven and Brahms, a respect for learning and a tenderness towards the unfortunate. The Lippmanns were comfortably off. Walter was an only child. A studious, argumentative, handsome boy of 17, he took up his abode at Weld Hall in the Harvard Yard and proceeded to make a name for himself. It was Harvard College's most vivid moment. Eliot was president. William...
...even the zestful playing of Lewin and Shapiro could rescue Beethoven's Sonata No.2 from its inherent dullness. Musicologist Paul Schauffler has called this an "optimistic" sonata, but to me it seems a very unpromising precursor of works like the Spring and Krentzer Sonatas. In theme and harmony it sounds, at its best, like bad Mozart...
Since 1938, RCA Victor has three times recorded a Toscanini performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony-only to have Perfectionist Toscanini refuse to let any of them be released. Last week, at 85, the Maestro told Victor to go ahead and release recording No. 4 next fall. "This," he said, "is the closest I can get . . . I am almost satisfied this time...
Claude Debussy did not like the way Felix Weingartner conducted Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony-"with the care of a conscientious gardener. He tidied it so neatly as to produce the illusion of a meticulously finished landscape in which the gently undulating hills are made of plush at ten francs the yard, and the foliage is crimped with curling tongs." Weingartner survived this crushing criticism, was one of the most celebrated conductors of his day (1863-1942). In Vienna, Berlin and in the U.S., which he visited twice, he was noted for his performances of the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies...