Superlatives: Bach & Beethoven - new sound recordings

National Review, April 16, 1990 by Ralph De Toledano

We have here, too, Rudolf Serkin's traversal of Beethoven's last and greatest piano sonatas (Deutsche Grammophon 427 498-2). Years ago, I heard him playing these sonatas in the concert hall and on recordings. In recollection, they were not as fine and as exciting as those Paul BaduraSkoda has put on vinyl for the French Astree label.

But certainly they were superior to the "classic" recordings of Artur Schnabel. Though Serkin was playing a modern piano whose action is stiffer and whose touch is heavier than the Graf Hammerflugel Beethoven used, he did not turn Opera 109, 110, and 111 into lectures, as Schnabel did, on structure-missing what was important thematically in order to adumbrate the underpinnings. But in this new CD recording, Serkin's tempos are draggingly slow, particularly in the Adagio molto semplice e cantabile-the last movement of Opus 111. This is sad. There was always a poetic stir to Serkin's playing, gentler but akin to Beethoven's. On this recording, he sounds tired.