Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
Performer: Melvyn Tan
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Signum
Catalogue: SIGCD906
Release: 2024
Size: 923 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109
01. I. Vivace ma non troppo
02. II. Prestissimo
03. III. Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung; Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo
Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110
04. I. Moderato cantabile molto espressivo
05. II. Allegro molto
06. III. Adagio ma non troppo
07. IV. Fuga. Allegro, ma non troppo
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
08. I. Maestoso. Allegro con brio ed appassionato
09. II. Arietta. Adagio molto semplice e cantabile
In his first recital album on Signum Records, internationally acclaimed pianist Melvyn Tan brings a new perspective to Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas 30, 31 and 32.
Exploration, insight and imagination are vital ingredients in Melvyn Tan’s blend of artistic attributes. He established his international reputation with pioneering performances on fortepiano and continues to cast fresh light on music conceived for the piano’s early and modern forms.
There is hardly a crying need for another reading of Beethoven’s last three sonatas, which are often described with superlatives. They do indeed deserve those, but there is more than one kind of superlative. Thomas Mann called the Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111, a “farewell to sonata form,” and there is a tendency to describe the works, which are among the most impressive examples of piano virtuosity before Liszt, in ultimate terms. However, what if that is not how Beethoven meant them? Much of his later music has an intimate, intellectual quality, and that is how pianist Melvyn Tan, known as a fortepianist but here playing a modern grand, approaches the three sonatas — as cousins to the late string quartets, perhaps. Even in the Maestoso opening movement of the C minor sonata, he is measured, forceful but not loud, and he keeps the music generally on an even keel. In a note, he stresses the roots of Beethoven’s writing in these works in the music of J.S. Bach and his son C.P.E. Bach. These roots are clear enough in the fugal finale of the Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110, but Tan goes further, shining the light on the contrapuntal intricacies and formal irregularities found in all three works. It is a fresh approach, and it really comes into its own in the later variations of the big Op. 109 and Op. 111 sonatas, which, in the latter case, achieve a remarkable delicacy as the music moves into the distant key of B flat major and stays there. Some may find that this approach lacks a certain late-Beethovenian ecstasy, but stick with it in these two variation sets; it is there, but one has to focus and have a little patience. This is an unorthodox set of Beethoven late sonatas, but it is one very much worth listening to, with fine Menuhin Hall sound that fits Tan’s ideas.