Ludwig van Beethoven - Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (Yevgeny Sudbin)

Information

Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven

• Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15
• Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 19

Yevgeny Sudbin, piano

Tapiola Sinfonietta

Osmo Vänskä, conductor

Date: 2017

Label: BIS

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Review

With this release Yevgeny Sudbin and Osmo Vänskä complete their survey of Beethoven’s piano concertos, and once again make these ubiquitous scores sound new by taking Beethoven’s markings seriously without checking their inherent musicality, taste, and imagination at the studio door.

The Tapiola Sinfonietta strings use vibrato sparingly, yet avoid the ugly, monotonous sonority typical of too many period ensembles. More importantly, Vänskä pays attention to and understands the expressive importance of the composer’s signature subito dynamics. He vivifies accompanimental passages that often go for nothing, such as the repeated woodwind chords in the B-flat concerto’s first-movement development section.

Some listeners will be annoyed at the overly tapered feminine endings in the ritornellos, a period-performance habit that refuses to die. However, the reduced orchestral forces allow myriad details their rarely heard due in the C major concerto first movement. For example, how often do you hear the horns and winds piggyback atop the piano’s downwardly cascading arpeggios? And rarely have the first-desk oboe solos sounded so colorful and emotionally intense.

Sudbin seems quite inspired by his collaborators, and turns in some of his crispest, most zestful, and contrapuntally astute work in each concerto’s outer movements. Yet the focus and crystalline transparency of his slow movements should not go unnoticed. Here he spins out long lines with a variety of articulations that reflect the breath pauses, accents, and phrase shapes one experiences with great singers. At the same time, the pianist is not afraid to be brutal and combative when needed, as he digs into fortissimo chords with full, cutting abandon.

He also lets loose in the Second concerto’s wonderful first-movement cadenza dating from Beethoven’s late period, with its intimations of the “Hammerklavier” sonata’s treacherous fugue. In the First concerto, Sudbin provides a stylish third-movement cadenza, and a less stylish yet pianistically lavish concoction based on a cadenza by Romantic keyboard icon Ignaz Friedman. Stimulating stuff!

— Jed Distler

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Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. Beethoven is acknowledged as a giant of classical music, and his influence on subsequent generations was profound. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas and 16 string quartets. Many of his most admired works come from the last decade of his life, when he was almost completely deaf.

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Yevgeny Sudbin (born 19 April 1980) is a Russian-born British concert pianist. He studied at the musical school of the Leningrad Conservatory. After his family emigrated to Berlin in 1990, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, then at the Purcell School and the Royal Academy of Music in London. Sudbin has lived in the UK since 1997, and made his debut at The Proms in July 2008. In September 2010, he was appointed visiting professor of piano at the Royal Academy of Music. Sudbin has recorded music of Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Medtner, Scarlatti, and Scriabin for the BIS label.

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