Menahem Pressler Plays Beethoven, Schubert & Chopin

Menahem Pressler Plays Beethoven, Schubert & Chopin cover $35.00 Out of Stock
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BEETHOVEN / CHOPIN / SCHUBERT
Menahem Pressler Plays Beethoven, Schubert & Chopin
Menahem Pressler (piano)

[ BIS SACD / Hybrid SACD ]

Release Date: Monday 30 September 2013

This item is currently out of stock. We expect to be able to supply it to you within 2 - 4 weeks from when you place your order.

Turning 90 in December 2013, Menahem Pressler was the pianist of the legendary Beaux Arts Trio for almost 55 years, and continues to enjoy a blossoming career as soloist and recitalist, while remaining as committed to teaching as ever.

For the greater part of his life, Pressler has lived with the two great sonatas recorded here, and has recounted how he studied Beethoven's Sonata in A flat major, Op.110 as a young man after having fled Nazi Germany for Israel in 1939: 'I didn't really understand many of the things that I understand now. I only understood the enormous emotional... tearing, tearing on my insides...'

Schubert's last sonata D.960, explores the emotions of a man who knows he has a limited time to live, and in which the slow movement resonates like a funeral march whilst also showing happiness and peace of mind.

" Pressler, from the sound of this recording, needs to embark on Beethoven and Schubert complete projects immediately. I doubt this will happen as the recording process can be arduous, and I doubt he has any interest in such an undertaking, but I do hope BIS will give him anything he wants, because if the quality is anything like this disc we could have quite an historical collection on our hands when all is said and done. A must-have issue."
(Five Stars AudAud.com)

"He has always had an unmistakeable sound: sparkling, limpid and full of wit and wisdom. The good news is that it is still there; and though the fingers do not always move as smoothly as they once did, spending a lifetime with the piano masterpieces pays its own dividends."
(BBC)

Tracks:

Beethoven:
Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110

Chopin:
Nocturne No. 20 in C sharp minor, Op. post.

Schubert:
Piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat major, D960