Word: sonata
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IVES: PIANO SONATA NO. I (1902-1910) (RCA Victor). Charles Ives was such a rebel that his music bears little resemblance to the placid mainstream of turn-of-the-century American sounds. Yet, as demonstrated in this intriguing recording of his First Piano Sonata, he is no composer to snoot. The work is raw, unpolished, sometimes uproariously funny; its New World vigor and intelligence cannot help being appealing. Pianist William Masselos imparts the work's spirit with appropriate improvisational candor...
MOZART: FANTASIA AND SONATA IN C MINOR AND SONATA NO. 8 IN A MINOR (Westminster). Daniel Barenboim, the peripatetic Israeli prodigy who, at 24, travels all over the world meeting the insatiable demand for recitals, plays three of the most brilliant, and saddest, of Mozart's works for the piano. The album offers great music well played-which is something to cheer about...
Shure is a pianist who likes his music meaty. At this Dudley House recital he cose to assault two of the most awesome pinnacles of the piano literature, the Schubert Sonata in Bb, Op. posthumous, and the Variations on a Theme of Diabelli by Beethoven. Reaction was mixed and tended to the extremes, but there was general admiration for the sheer endurance feat of getting through all those notes...
...trying to outdo himself, Monday night Shure tackled not two but three major works of the piano repertoire. Once again, Beethoven and Schubert figured prominently on the program, the former represented by the venerated Sonata in E, Op. 109, and the latter by another fruit of his frantic but fecund last eleven months, the Sonata in c minor, Op. posthumous...
...Schubert Sonata in c also evidenced an intensive study of the score. Unfortunately, Schubert does not bear the same kind of analysis as Beethoven. As in Opus 109, Shure was careful to clarify every counter-voice, phrase-grouping, and point of articulation. This had the regrettable effect of making Schubert's structural joinings even more obvious than they are. Shure took the piece too seriously, not leaving room for enough of that Vienese Gemutlich and Empfindsamkeit that are Schubert, special charms. Shure's performance had plenty of pianissimo but not enough sparkle...