Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2 ‘Moonlight' (Mondschein Sonata)

YUNDI makes his return to Universal and DG conquering new grounds with his first ever Beethoven recording. The album focuses on the composer’s most beloved and romantic piano works, the three name sonatas Moonlight, Pathétique and Appassionata

After winning the 2000 Warsaw Chopin competition Yundi immediately established himself among the leading pianists of his generation.

Rising to outstanding stardom in his native China (where he has performed in TV shows watched by hundreds of millions of people, together with stars like Kylie Minogue) he has maintained his dedication to the classical world.

Although he attended the Leipzig Conservatory at the age of ten and five years later studied with Liszt’s pupil Eugen d’Albert for a short time, Wilhelm Backhaus (1884-1969) otherwise received no formal training. He was no stranger to England, having made his London début at the age of sixteen and, when only twenty-one, in the same year that he won the Anton Rubinstein prize in Paris, he took up a post at the Royal Northern College of Music. While there Backhaus deputised for an indisposed Alexander Siloti at a Manchester Hallé Orchestra concert under the great Austro-Hungarian conductor Hans Richter (1843-1916). It was Richter who had conducted the Vienna première of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and he offered interpretive advice to Backhaus.

In April 1960 Backhaus was at the BBC for a broadcast of three Beethoven Sonatas – Les Adieux, Op.81a, Moonlight, Op.27 No.2 and the last great Piano Sonata in C minor, Op.111. The latter two from this particular broadcast are heard here and most interesting in the C minor Sonata is the tempo Backhaus chooses for the Arietta. Marked Adagio molto semplice e cantabile and often played extremely slowly, Backhaus begins more at an Andante. In doing so he retains a constant tempo throughout and does not speed up for the later variations as some pianists do. The duration of just over thirteen minutes for this movement, including all the repeats, is almost identical to both his mono and stereo studio recordings whereas Wilhelm Kempff, in his mid 1960s recording, takes fifteen and a half minutes.

Backhaus only recorded a handful of Sonatas and Concertos by Mozart. He played K.330, K.331 and K.332, works favoured by many pianists, but he also played two of the earlier Piano Sonatas – K.282 and K.283. For the BBC recital in November 1961 Backhaus chose to play K.330 in C major and K.332 in F major. With a career beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing to the end of the 1960s, the young Backhaus would have been influenced by the performance practices of the mid-nineteenth century in Mozart playing through the ‘Dresden china’ school of playing Mozart of the 1950s. In the outer movements Backhaus tends to slow down for the second subjects to give a different and contrasting character and in the slow movements he plays with a depth of tone and feeling that may be frowned upon by some urtext performers who think they know the ‘correct’ way to play Mozart. Backhaus knew that the music speaks for itself and his line of thought and sense of structure are always clear and never sentimental. The studio recital ended with Beethoven’s Les Adieux Sonata.

On the second volume in his complete cycle of all 32 sonatas, Jonathan Biss has chosen the early but large-scale ‘Grand Sonata’ op.7 from 1796, a work exceeded in length only by the ‘Hammerklavier’ sonata, and the most famous of all the sonatas – the ‘Moonlight’, along with the Fantasy and op.78.

Spanning the years 1795 to 1822, the piano sonatas contain some of Beethoven’s most profound musical utterances. Beethoven’s subtle transformation of the piano sonata form is extraordinary, from the classical style of the early sonatas to the freer multi-movement structures of the visionary late works. The rare Fantasy op.77 gives an insight to Beethoven’s improvisatory style, in which he was without equal. Moscheles and Czerny both said that this work reminded them of Beethoven’s famous improvisations. It dates from 1808, the same year as the delightful and compact op.78 sonata.

One of Eloquence’s chief credos is to bring back into circulation forgotten recordings or artists who’ve slipped from memory. ‘Hans Richter-Who?’ you might say. Born in 1912 in Dresden and taught there both by Hans Schneider and in the famous class of Robert Teichmüller, around the age of 30 Richter-Haaser moved to Detmold. At first Richter-Haaser took over the artistic direction of the city orchestra. But by 1947 he had already been entrusted with a piano masterclass. This must be seen as a substantial foundation for the rank and renown of the Detmold Music Academy, which in recent years has become a sort of forge for pianists. His recordings are, sadly, few and far between. He recorded Beethoven sonatas for both Philips and EMI. Issued several years ago on its ‘The Early Years’ imprint, these Beethoven recordings from the 1950s are long out of print and a much sought-after collector’s item. The sonatas are coupled here with Richter-Haaser as soloist in the Choral Fantasy, with Karl Böhm conducting.

Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Valentina began playing the piano at the age of three and performed her first solo recital just one year later. She has won prestigious awards for her playing internationally, including the Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition (together with her husband Alexei Kuznetsoff).

Valentina Lisitsa has already performed at major international venues including Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York and the Vienna Musikverein, and in countries as far apart as the Netherlands and Brazil. She has played with renowned orchestras including Chicago Symphony, Seattle Symphony, San Francisco Symphony and the Pittsburgh Symphony, collaborating with conductors Manfred Honeck, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Jukka-Pekka Saraste, among others. Upcoming performances are confirmed with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Philharmonie im Gasteig, Munich with Münchner Symphoniker and recitals at the Victoria Hall in Geneva and Philharmonie in Berlin.

With more than 43 million views and over 52,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel, the young pianist is not only one of the fastest-rising stars of the international concert scene but probably the single most-watched classical musician, having rapidly overtaken long-established giants of the piano world in terms of global online viewing figures.

The brilliant 24-year-old Korean pianist HJ Lim, who signed an exclusive contract with EMI Classics in September 2011, has recorded her first project for the label, an ambitious traversal of the Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas. Lim, a Yamaha exclusive artist, recorded the sonatas on a Yamaha CFX concert grand piano in July and August 2011, grouping them into eight themes. The recordings will be released as four 2-CD sets over the course of 2012 with a complete deluxe box set to be available at the conclusion of the project.

Pianists who record the Beethoven sonatas cycle usually do so at the peak of long and storied careers. With this bold and controversial recording project, HJ Lim aims to prove that at the age of 24 she is ready to record the Beethoven sonatas now. She has the intelligence and artistic vision and her powerful performances have been captivating both traditional and new audiences. She has already performed complete Beethoven sonatas cycles over eight days each in France, Germany and Japan.

Produced by EMI Classics in partnership with the prestigious National Gallery in London, The National Gallery Collection is a budget-price catalogue series bringing together the very best in fine art and classical music.

The collection features a selection of classical masterworks in celebrated recordings from the EMI Classics catalogue, brought together with great artworks from The National Gallery’s permanent collection.