BEETHOVEN
Piano Sonatas - No.8, 'Pathetique', Op.13; No.15, 'Pastoral', Op.28; No.27, Op 90; No.30, Op.109
Jonathan Biss piano
EMI 394422-2 73'
Click on the link below to hear an extract from the opening movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata Op.109 taken from his EMI disc:
Breaking news: Jonathan Biss wins a 2008 Edison Award for his recording of Beethoven Sonatas on EMI Classics. Click here for more details. |
"The best moments of Jonathan Biss's programme easily attest to his growing reputation. An organic ebb and flow governs the freedom and poetry with which he shapes Op. 28's outer movements and Op. 90's finale. In the latter sonata's first movement, Biss makes the most of the development section's seeming rhythmic disintegration, although his habitually telegraphed retards soften the austere surface that equally expressive yet more literal readings convey...
Everything comes together for Biss in the Pathétique. The first movement's epic scale resonates with authority, poise, and dynamic contrasts that startle without feeling oversized… inspiration truly dominates throughout the Adagio cantabile."
Gramophone, December 2007
Magical Beethoven from Jonathan Biss
"There is nothing showy about Jonathan Biss's piano-playing; everything feels completely natural, innately musical, tightly controlled and deeply felt. These are intelligent performances…
Biss's reading of the Pathétique brims with energy… the Pastoral is gorgeously shaped and articulated. Biss is engaging too in the two-movement E minor Sonata, Op.90…
The stand-out performance here is Op. 109, where Biss is never less than compelling and at times profound. The way he dissolves the sonority of the Andante's final variation before coalescing for the theme's final return is a magical moment of great emotional force. In such an amply served work, Biss holds his own among such luminaries as Arrau, Brendel, Goode, Solomon and (perhaps best of all although currently unavailable) Myra Hess. "
BBC Music Magazine, December 2007
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INTERNATIONAL PIANO
"This is another imposing release in Jonathan Biss's fast-growing discography. Hot on the heels of an exceptional Schumann disc, this well-recorded recital marks a definite leap in maturity in the young American's Beethoven playing (from his recording on the EMI Debut label), revealing a musician fully in the driving seat and at the service of the music.
Limbering up with the 'Pathétique '… Biss nails the work's opening spirit with a naturalness I find so often lacking, the declamatory C minor cry and sense of hushed expectation measured and well paced. In the 'Pastoral', the first movement is sung with a wonderfully luminous sound and Biss displays an uncommon sensitivity to infinitesimal gradations of harmonic colour. Hardly less impressive is his way with the Adagio's left-hand pizzicato passages, while the playful trio section flickers impishly.
Good as these interpretations are, however, the remaining two sonatas are the icing on the cake. A work on the cusp of Beethoven's final-period masterpieces, Op.90's enigmatic charm is done full justice: the first movement's unmistakable antithetic dialogue (which, according to Schindler, Beethoven described as a 'conflict between head and heart') is beautifully captured, while the Schubertian second movement sings and soars as well as I've heard it. [In] Op.109… the musical line is never overstretched and nowhere is Biss's refined command of touch and colour more evident than in that extraordinary set of variations. For all their complexity and inner logic, here there is no frosty ratiocinating - this is sublime music, sublimely felt.
As with his Schumann recital, the liner booklet includes Biss's own highly articulate notes, revealing an ardent love for and humility in the face of these titanic scores. He writes deprecatingly, 'Playing Beethoven compels you to make yourself a better musician, a better person. I have tried: I shall keep trying.' On the strength of this release, I can unreservedly say that Jonathan Biss has not merely tried, he has succeeded."
International Piano, December 2007
"Biss has the rare ability to make you sit up and take notice as if you were hearing a well-known piece for the very first time. Like Barenboim, he creates the uncanny impression of the music growing organically in front of your eyes, so that even when you know Beethoven is about to slip in one of his little harmonic or dynamic wobblies, it still has the power to surprise and shock.
Above all, particularly in the two late sonatas (Nos 27 & 30), Biss tantalisingly combines Classical concision with a Romanticised poetic sensitivity that gets right to the heart of Beethoven's creative vision."
Classic FM Magazine, November 2007
ARTHUR RUBENSTEIN WORLD
"One is hardly ever reminded of the style of some other pianist. In his intensity of expression, Biss is absolutely personal - and able to arouse to life the emotional worlds marginally wrapped in music, reliving them, so to speak. Thus he is successful in creating a deep interpretation of these sonatas. In the "Pathétique", he is able to demonstrate by a marvellously changeable sound all the different emotional moments. His sonority is always earthy dark and pleasant, never brutal, even during the strongest outbursts. The same applies to the "Pastorale", where he takes the fourth movement with changing ease, which is inimitable.
Jonathan Biss is a brilliant pianist, but above all, he shows here that he is an artist who perfectly knows how to illuminate the emotional worlds of the compositions. A grandiose Beethoven interpreter!"
Arthur Rubenstein World Magazine, January 2008