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Diabelli Vars
 
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Diabelli Vars

Ludwig Van Beethoven (Artist) | Format: Audio CD
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
Price: CDN$ 17.90 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details
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Product Details
1. Tema. Vivace
2. Var. 1. Alla Marcia maestoso
3. Var. 2. Poco allegro
4. Var. 3. L'istesso tempo
5. Var. 4. Un poco pił vivace
6. Var. 5. Allegro vivace
7. Var. 6. Allegro ma non troppo e serioso
8. Var. 7. Un poco pił allegro
9. Var. 8. Poco vivace
10. Var. 9. Allegro pesante e risoluto
11. Var. 10. Presto
12. Var. 11. Allegretto
13. Var. 12. Un poco pił moto
14. Var. 13. Vivace
15. Var. 14. Grave e maestoso
16. Var. 15. Presto scherzando
17. Var. 16. Allegro
18. Var. 17
19. Var. 18. Poco moderato
20. Var. 19. Presto
See all 34 tracks on this disc

Product Description

From Amazon.co.uk

Maurizio Pollini likes to live with a work before he commits it to CD, and he's been refining his approach to these astonishing variations for 25 years. Though as he himself stresses, they are not so much variations as transformations--of a theme which stays relentlessly in the banal key of C major. Until now, Alfred Brendel's has been the ideal version, but here he's been trumped: Pollini brings Beethoven's vast landscape into high and exciting relief in an unprecedented fashion. The opening few pieces seem quite unassuming, but by the time he reaches the visionary stasis at the work's pivotal point he's got the listener in the palm of his hand. Thereafter it's all magic: massive mountains emerge and furious storms erupt on their slopes; the moments of delicate lyricism and broad comedy are played out with a touch which is marvellously varied, but always imbued with nobility and grandeur. Addictive. --Michael Church

Chronique amazon.fr

Imaginez Diabelli demandant à plusieurs compositeurs de son époque d'écrire chacun une valse sur un thème qu'il a lui-même proposé. Beethoven rend sa copie en 1823... Ce sont trente-trois variations, qui seront son testament pianistique, et probablement la plus grande oeuvre du genre. Écoutez comme ce petit thème anodin devient une fantastique cathédrale. Le pianiste italien creuse chaque phrase créant, comme Beethoven l'imagina sur le papier, un son révolutionnaire, qui dépasse les marteaux de l'instrument, et qui pulvérise les règles de l'époque. Dans le toucher de Maurizio Pollini, il y a les ricanements, la douleur et le mystère d'un génie qui avance sans connaître sa destination, comme s'il s'agissait d'un des jeux les plus géniaux qui soient. C'est une magistrale leçon de musique. --Pierre Graveleau

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Customer Reviews

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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Pollini's Diabelli Variations: a testament? Mar 20 2001
Format:Audio CD
I always thought that Beethoven's Diabelli Variations were the piece that suited best Pollini's art and hoped that someday he would decide to record them. But, as ready as I have been, Pollini's interpretation has spoiled all my expectations. Surely, his Diabelli have the same stature with the definitive version of the last Beethoven piano sonatas he signed with Deuschte Gramophon but they are not in the same vein.

Here we find a more moving interpreter, vulnerable and almost fragile in expression. Listen to Variations 7, 8, 11, 13, the hesitant lightness of the basses sounding like a kind of barcarole. Variation 20 is played with supreme abandon as an agonizing heartbeat while variation 24 (fughetta) made one regret even more that Pollini has not recorded Bach's Well tempered Klavier. As to Variations 31 and 33, they sound profoundly dramatic by means of sheer reserve and projection in the unknown.

Could one expect to listen to a more interrogative version? Polllini plays those variations as if he had no straight answer and kept wondering and wandering about aimlessly expressing thus surprising humility in his approach of this masterpiece.

I have several versions of Diabelli Variations respectively by Pludermacher, Brendel (DG, Vox), Kovacevich, Arrau and above all Richter. Yet, Pollini is second to none. Apparently less authoritative than Richter, he is at the same time more human.

Pollini has provided a stunning answer for those who still doubted his capacity to show pure sensitivity.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Great! May 26 2001
Format:Audio CD
This is an engaging and (dare I say it?) entertaining recording of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. In this performance, the many distinctive moods of this work, from the playful (Var. 5) and exhuberent (Variations 23), to the quietly introspective (Var. 24), the eerie (no's 14 and 20), the graceful (Var. 8), the irreverent (what else could you call Beethoven's choice of theme?), and the immensely personal world of the final variations, are vividly presented, full of individuality, yet, with an understanding of the relationship of each one to the variations around it and the work as a unified whole. Although this interpretation is `intellectual', it is by no means `studied', and the work unfolds naturally and with authority in this emotionally satisfying performance. Highly recommended.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Remarkable Dec 28 2000
Format:Audio CD
Pollini was rumored to have a Diabelli recording in the making as far back as 1980. A better match for performer and work can hardly be imagined. The disc joins the short list of great Diabellis on record (Schnabel, Shure, Serkins father and son).

The performance is not quite what many would expect from the pianist. There is a quality of rumination that Pollini in 1980 might not have achieved. The architecture of the work (or an architecture, at least) is revealed with a confidence that rivals Schnabel's. The final variation is taken at a stunningly slow tempo; I was reminded of the Vegh Quartet playing the slow movement of Op. 135.

The Diabelli is one of the greatest challenges for the pianist-musician. Pollini has risen to the task. The disc commands attention and respect.

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