Rzewski plays Beethoven - Appassionata Sonata Audio + Sheet music

Contemporary composer and virtuoso pianist Frederic Rzewski performs Ludwig van Beethoven's well-known Appassionata Sonata, live in 2001.

1st mvt: 0:05
Cadenza: 12:42

2nd mvt: 17:28
Cadenza: 23:11 (In this movement, not all the marked candezas are actual improvisations but rather editions by Rzewski. I have another recording of him playing this piece, and he plays those repetitions exactly the same way. The only real cadenza is the last one.)

3rd mvt: 25:40
1st cadenza: 29:55
2nd cadenza: 36:13

Some explanation is, I believe, needed to this performance.


Excerpts from an article on Rzewski:

"No question, Mr. Rzewski likes to keep listeners guessing. When he plays other people's music, he can raise hackles by improvising cadenzas in the middle of such untouchable masterworks as Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" and "Appassionata" Sonatas.

"I do it because I think it's authentic," he said. "It's what I think Beethoven would have done. A few years ago, after a concert at Bard College, a musicologist came up to me and told me very sternly that you could do that at parties but not at a concert. Usually people don't hire you at all if they think you're going to go in for such shenanigans.

"And maybe they're right. My Japanese friend Yuji Takahashi, the pianist and composer, says: 'It's redundant. All the irrational stuff is already there, in Beethoven's writing.' I do whatever I think is right at the moment. One thing is for sure: You shouldn't prepare it. Improvisations have to pop into your head then and there, or there's no reason for them.""


Let me quote a rather famous and even in this case quite valid and sagacious speech by Leonard Bernstein, originally on his collaboration with Glenn Gould:

"You are about to hear a rather, shall we say, unorthodox performance of the Brahms D Minor Concerto, a performance distinctly different from any I've ever heard, or even dreamt of for that matter, in its remarkably broad tempi and its frequent departures from Brahms' dynamic indications. I cannot say I am in total agreement with Mr. Gould's conception and this raises the interesting question: "What am I conducting it?" (...) Because I am fascinated, glad to have the chance for a new look at this much-played work; Because, what's more, there are moments in Mr. Gould's performance that emerge with astonishing freshness and conviction. Thirdly, because we can all learn something from this extraordinary artist, who is a thinking performer, and finally because there is in music what Dimitri Mitropoulos used to call "the sportive element", that factor of curiosity, adventure, experiment, and I can assure you that it has been an adventure this week collaborating with Mr. Gould on this Brahms concerto and it's in this spirit of adventure that we now present it to you."

Category:

Music

Tags:

• frederic
• rzewski
• ludwig
• van
• beethoven
• piano
• sonata
• hammerklavier
• appassionata
• waldstein
• les
• adieux
• la
• chasse
• moonlight
• tempest
• late
• great
• piece
• not
• the
• best
• but
• most
• interesting
• performance
• definitely
• avant-garde
• cadenzas
• improvisations
• people
• united
• will
• never
• be
• defeated
• variations
• north
• american
• ballades
• squares
• de
• profundis
• pocket
• symphony
• giant
• video
• hamelin
• volodos
• crazy
• transcription

[ks391262]

I want to point out that Rzewski was sight-reading for this recording: "This was totally unprepared and unexpected, as I guess one can hear from all the little imperfections. When we were recording the Nonesuch box ("Rzewski Plays Rzewski"), one day we had some time left over after we had done the day's work. Marc-Henri Cykiert (the producer) suggested that we might try something completely different, just for fun. I happened to have the Beethoven Sonatas with me and winged it."

[madlovba3]

@ks391262 He had probably not played it for a long time before this take, but I know that he did have played and learned this Sonata - there is a live recording from Tokyo of him playing it, and it's from 2000 if I'm not mistaken. He didn't have to sight-read the whole thing, only to refresh his memory on few details I presume.

[Darrning]

The worst performance I've ever listening to this sonata. Simply shameful.

Poor Rzewski....

However thanks for the post.

[madlovba3]

@Darrning Err, David Messulam's is 1000x worse. I disagree with Rzewski's drag in the 1st mvt, but I think the second one was very well rendered, and the 3rd one is really quite refreshing. Furthermore, the cadenzas are particularly interesting.

[boutrosdu93]

tooooo slowwwww first movement

[ks391262]

@ks391262 And he was turning his own pages (he always does, plus you can hear it in the recording.)



[AcePro]

This was an amazingly unlikable performance in my opinion. The third movement is pretty bad when played that slow. And the first movement..ugh..

[patricioapaez]

@madlovba3 hahaha im glad we agree about Messulam's

[Darrning]

@madlovba3 Thanks for informing me of Messulam!; I didn't know him... You're completely right. Messulam is ...... incomprehensible, ridiculous, absurd...

The Rzewski performance, is the second worst version of this sonata. The cadenza into all the sonata is inadmissible (apart all the problem of time, ped., staccato etc. etc.). This is not Beethoven, is only an bad Rzewski.

[sfsphil]

@madlovba3 While I don't think that Rzewski's ideas in the 1st mvt were entirely successful, I agree that the rest is interesting. Fresh approaches, while sometimes risky (at least as far as offending "purists" is concerned), can shed some welcome new light.