COMPOSERS: Beethoven
LABELS: Decca Classic Sound
WORKS: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat (Emperor); Variations & Fugue in E flat on an Original Theme, Op. 35 (Eroica)
PERFORMER: Clifford Curzon (piano) Vienna PO/Hans Knappertsbusch
CATALOGUE NO: 452 302-2 ADD 1957/71
Clifford Curzon was an extremely self-critical recording artist: renowned as a supreme Schubert and Mozart player, his Beethoven could be said to eschew profundity. Despite his dislike of the recording process and his non-definitive view of his own playing, Curzon, with Hans Knappertsbusch as a sympathetic accompanist (he was a man who also hated recording as it precluded risk-taking), plays an eloquently refined Emperor Concerto (Vienna 1957) coupled with a thoughtfully vivid Eroica Variations (Snape 1971) which remind us that he was a pupil of Schnabel. Christopher Fifield
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat (Emperor); Variations & Fugue in E flat on an Original Theme, Op. 35 (Eroica)
Clifford Curzon was an extremely self-critical recording artist: renowned as a supreme Schubert and Mozart player, his Beethoven could be said to eschew profundity. Despite his dislike of the recording process and his non-definitive view of his own playing, Curzon, with Hans Knappertsbusch as a sympathetic accompanist (he was a man who also hated recording as it precluded risk-taking), plays an eloquently refined Emperor Concerto (Vienna 1957) coupled with a thoughtfully vivid Eroica Variations (Snape 1971) which remind us that he was a pupil of Schnabel. Christopher Fifield
Our rating
5
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:31 pm