Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
Performer: Nelson Freire
Orchestra: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Conductor: Riccardo Chailly
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Decca
Catalogue: 4786771
Release: 2014
Size: 1.01 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 ‘Emperor’
01. 1. Allegro
02. 2. Adagio un poco mosso
03. 3. Rondo (Allegro)
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
04. 1. Maestoso – Allegro con brio ed appassionato
05. 2. Arietta (Adagio molto semplice e cantabile)
Track length
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 (“Emperor”), was the first piece Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire played in public, at the age of 12. He returned to it in 2014, at the beginning of a new Beethoven cycle, and the results are quite attractive. His reading avoids the gigantism and formal flourish implicit in most performances of the “Emperor,” but it’s not an anti-heroic interpretation. Instead, Freire steps back slightly and allows greater articulation of the piano’s sweeping phrases in the opening movement. Such an approach fits well with the finale, whose dance-like qualities are thus permitted to emerge, and it also allows Freire to display his considerable lyrical gifts along the way. The program seems an odd coupling: a concerto and a sonata, one of Beethoven’s most public works joined to one of his most inward. But in Freire’s reading the pairing works well. The Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111, as transcendent as it is, can also be read as a virtuoso work of Beethoven’s unique kind, where all the virtuoso passagework contains secrets of its own, and here it serves the function of ringing the curtain down with luminous peace after the mighty concerto. A worthy, slightly unorthodox pair of performances from an underappreciated veteran of the piano.
Released to celebrate his 70th birthday, Nelson Freire presents three landmark albums on the Decca label – the first in a brand new Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle begins with Piano Concerto No. 5, universally known as the “Emperor.”
This is the first recorded collaboration between the great Brazilian pianist and Italian maestro Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester since their highly acclaimed Gramophone Recording of the Year, the two Brahms piano concertos, in 2007, which went on to win multiple awards.
The concerto is paired alongside the C minor Piano Sonata no. 32, the composer’s last.
This album will be simultaneously released with Radio Days in September, followed by a Chopin album including Piano Concerto No.2 and other solo gems in January 2015.