Beethoven: Bagatelles (11), Op. 119

Praised by The New York Times for her ‘clear articulation … unequivocal phrasing … [and] expressivity’, Ingrid Jacoby has established herself as one of the most poetic and admired pianists of her generation. She began her piano studies with Larisa Gorodecka, herself a pupil of Heinrich Neuhaus. Graduating at sixteen with highest honours from the St Louis Conservatory of Music, Ingrid Jacoby went on to win the National Baldwin Piano Competition, the Concert Artists Guild International Piano Competition and the Steinway Hall Artists Prize.

In America, the National Society of Arts and Letters awarded to her (in 1994) one of its highest distinctions, the Lifetime Achievement Award. Her discography includes the world premiere recording of Korngold’s solo piano pieces, works by Gershwin and Bernstein, and a recording of the Shostakovich and Ustvolskaya piano concertos with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, which earned the highest commendation from the American Record Guide.

This is Volume 2 of Ingrid Jacoby’s complete set of Beethoven Piano Concertos.

The first CD of Beethoven Concertos 2 & 4 has received wonderful reviews: ‘Jacoby revitalises Beethoven’s Piano Concertos … terrifically and with so much intelligence and energy that all leading competitors pale by comparison.’ (Crescendo magazine, Germany), and ‘Here is a performance of Beethoven that is well-nigh flawless in every regard.’ (International Record Review, UK). This strongly projected performance of Beethoven’s Concerto No.5 is complemented by an all-Beethoven recital which Ingrid Jacoby recorded in 1991–2, featuring sets of variations, the Andante favori and the op.119 Bagatelles. The producer was Tony Faulkner.

The booklet contains notes by Richard Wigmore in addition to personal insights by Ingrid Jacoby on Beethoven interpretation.

The final volume in the series, featuring Beethoven’s Piano Concertos 1 & 3, will be released in the autumn this year.

Following his highly acclaimed Beethoven ‘Moonlight’, ‘Pathétique’ and ‘Waldstein’ Sonatas release, Hyperion’s Gramophone-award-winning artist Steven Osborne turns his talents to Beethoven’s complete Bagatelles. Though the composer himself referred to these thirty short piano works, which he penned throughout his life, as ‘trifles’, these are nonetheless trifles from the mind of a genius. In this polished album, Osborne lends his remarkable artistry to everything from the Six Bagatelles of Op 126, which at times occupy the same rarefied spiritual world as the late quartets and were the very last works Beethoven ever wrote for the piano, to the composer’s most famous stand-alone piano piece, the mysterious little A minor Bagatelle known to all the world as ‘Für Elise’.

On this new disc, Ronald Brautigam now embarks on the second leg of his traversal of Beethoven’s complete music for solo piano. In this volume he gives us the complete Bagatelles, and includes not only the three sets published during Beethoven’s life time, but also thirteen further pieces composed throughout Beethoven’s career, between 1795 and 1825.

Among Beethoven’s Bagatelles – whether official or unofficial ones – are pieces that may originally have been intended as movements of piano sonatas, as well as pieces of an extreme brevity, such as the 11 seconds long Allegramente, No. 10 of Elf Neue Bagatellen, Op.119.

Previous volumes in this cycle have been highly praised by reviewers around the world: performances of the Waldstein and Appassionata Sonatas (BISSACD1573) which were described by Gramophone as ‘stunning … technically breathtaking, stylistically astute, emotionally intense and musically alive in every moment’