Beethoven special
Andrew Mcgregor unboxes a trio of new releases comprising complete works
All of Beethoven in a box? It seems impertinent somehow to confine the complete works of this musical colossus to a cardboard straitjacket, but Brilliant Classics already managed the feat with its complete edition back in 2017 (Brilliant Classics 95510; 85 CDS). So if you already bought that, why would your eyes and ears be drawn by three new complete Beethoven editions for his 250th birthday, especially one that occupies more space, and costs the same as the other three put together?
Beethoven - – Complete Edition
Naxos 8500250; 90 CDS
In terms of scholarship and ambition, this is a step above the Brilliant box, curated by the Unheard Beethoven project’s Willem Holsbergen. It takes 101 pages just to list the recordings, so there’s only 30 pages left in the booklet for Keith Anderson to talk us through the life and works, with texts and translations online. You’ll need to go there for more details of the fragments, sketches, drafts, arrangements and reconstructions they’ve recorded specially. But let’s begin with Beethoven basics: the symphonies from the Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia and Béla Drahos offer compact forces, decent, straightforward, not particularly thrilling accounts.
The piano concertos: Stefan Vladar's performances with Capella Istropolitana and Barry Wordsworth are enjoyable, but lack a little pianistic personality and colour. It’s Naxos workhorse Jenö Jandó’s cycle of the piano sonatas, and he’s a reliable guide, so it seems a little graceless to interpose Boris Giltburg’s more recent accounts of three of the sonatas, fine though they are. Chamber music offers some highlights: Maria Kliegel in the cello sonatas, her Xyrion Trio recordings are excellent at any price, and the Kodály Quartet’s
Beethoven cycle is often outstanding, especially the late quartets. For someone new to Beethoven and keen to explore, this is a compact, wellcurated bargain.
Beethoven – The Complete Works
Warner Classics 9029539882; 80 CDS For around the same price there’s this slightly slimmer offering, and Warner Classics has access to the back catalogues of EMI, Virgin, Erato, Teldec and others. Bigger names: Harnoncourt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe’s fine set of the symphonies, Schiff and Harnoncourt in the piano concertos, Kovacevich in the piano sonatas, the Zukerman/du Pré/barenboim Piano Trio, and I’m not surprised they’ve picked the Artemis Quartet’s more recent cycle over the classic Alban Berg Quartet. They're fresher, more spontaneous performances. Klemperer’s classic 1962 Fidelio and his Missa solemnis, plus the Blomstedt Leonore that’s shared with the Brilliant and Naxos sets, as well as attractive new recordings of Beethoven songs. Classic accounts, big names, many timeless performances. There's a useful index, which Naxos lacks, but ten fewer discs because they focus on the finished not the fragments. If you want those, Naxos wins.
Beethoven 2020 – The New Complete Edition
DG 483 6767; 118 CDS, 2 DVDS, 3 Blu-ray Audio
But then there's this behemoth: the most complete Beethoven edition ever issued, in co-operation with the Beethoven-haus Bonn. Avoid it like the plague if you can’t afford the asking price, as it hits the collector button really hard. You’ll want it before you even open it, and when I’d lifted the lid, I found myself immersed in the gorgeous hardback book for a couple of hours before I started exploring. And when I did: four cycles of the symphonies – Karajan, Abbado and Chailly, the Vienna cycle with different conductors from Kleiber to Nelsons, and on period instruments from John
Eliot Gardiner. I was wondering where the period instrument Beethoven recordings were hiding, and quite a few are here: Levin and Gardiner in the piano concertos, Zehetmair and Brüggen in the Violin Concerto. Only a handful of sonatas on period keyboards sadly, but enough examples to demonstrate the differences, and when you see the roster of great pianists in the main piano section – Brendel and Kovacevich, Gilels and Gulda, Pollini and Perahia and others – you know you’re looking at a lost weekend. The set of ‘Classic Performances’ has fascinating historic recordings, and for audiophiles the Blu-ray Audio discs offer the 1963 Karajan symphonies, Wilhelm Kempff’s sonatas and the Amadeus Quartet, remastered. Bernstein’s Fidelio on DVD and Carlos Kleiber in concert are here too.
Each section has its own guide book, nine in all, and you suddenly realise that this is Beethoven curated on a different level, a museum quality collection of his life in music to be explored at leisure, following different pathways, offering an astonishing range of possibilities and interpretations. This box of delights is priceless. But you’re going to need another shelf.