Haydn: Piano Sonatas
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Free Music Notes for Haydn: Piano Sonatas
Free Music Review: * * 1/2 Fast and brittle, which seems to be the way Haydn is played lately
Hit: 3 Stars
This is Haydn presented at a gallop. Actually, sometimes it's presented at the speed of a 340HP DOC engine. I really can't understand what people get out of music like this, other than razzle-dazzle, definitely not what Haydn is about. Marc-Andre Hamelin's performances fly out of the gate, but the genial, jaunty and joyous qualities (not trying for alliteration there, it just fit) are lost. This is very one-dimensional Haydn, and the aim seems to simply be to play as quickly as possible.
Slow movements lack that soulful pensiveness. The allegro finales don't have the rollicking good time. The opening allegros don't have that philosophical quality. This is almost computer-like playing. It certainly doesn't bridge the gap from the Rococo to Mozart and Beethoven.
Some here are impressed by MAH's technique. I am not. To me he sounds colorless, brittle and sometimes even drops notes in very fast passages. I can't escape the feeling that if he were to slow down a little he'd not only not flub the occasional note but also play with more line, more tone and more attention to the big picture, the structure of each movement.
Richter, Ernst Levy, Mikhail Pletnev, heck even Emmanuel Ax have made better recordings, maybe not of all the sonatas here, but of enough that I feel no compulsion to keep this on my shelf. Someone else here mentioned Oort. I haven't heard his Haydn, but have been very impressed by his Chopin set as well as other recordings, so that may be worth checking out as well. But I'd avoid this set. Sound like the "classical" music they play in Starbucks. It's even super-caffeinated.
Free Music Review: Where's the fire?
Hit: 3 Stars
Marc-Andre Hamelin's twofer of Haydn piano sonatas details most of the master's later sonatas in stylisitic performances that sometimes get a bit too dramatic and use too much pedal. Hamelin is a world-class player recorded well here who has some affinity for this music. My principal question when listening to these is, "Where's the fire?" Hamelin uses tempo more attuned to the keyboard music of Antonio Vivaldi, had he written any, than the witty and relaxed Josef Haydn. For all his fine quailties, Hamelin simply plays too fast too often, as if he's trying to set some sort of world speed record.
I recommend anyone looking to invest in a two-CD set of Hadyn sonatas to first sample the classic set by Alfred Brendel Piano Sonatas that's been around more than 20 years. He is more mature and more temperate playing than what's provided by this viruoso. Brendel is expert in this repertoire and always adheres to Haydn's style and temperament. Some other famous players have done well with these sonatas, also. Sviatoslav Richter loved Haydn and recorded many of the sonatas on concert and studio recordings over his career. Virtuoso colorist keyboard virtuoso Mikhail Pletnev recorded a handful of the sonatas including one of the best versions of the "English" sonata ever recorded. Try his recordings on Virgin and compare them to Hamelin, who is a fine player but is intemperate.
Free Music Review: The Fastest Haydn Sonatas Ever Recorded in the Guiness Book of Records
Hit: 3 Stars
I've to second AllOverWith's review of Hamelin's Haydn and I have nothing much to add that has not been said.
Four positive, five-star reviews had prompted me to listen again - just to the entire first-movement of the last C major Sonata. I thought I could be wrong - that there could still be something that I could savour from the recording. Maybe something that I've not expected.
At such breakneck speed, I thought I was just treated to a whirlwind of notes, smacked together in a fraction of a second; it made little sense to my mind's ear, even less so to speak of a nuanced interpretation.
If the whole point of this other set of Haydn sonatas in the market is to prove something that prior recordings haven't, Hamelin has certainly done it - purely in terms of speed. If anything else there's probably little that has not been already said.
Initially I gave five out of five stars unintentionally and wanted to leave it as it is, but thought it would be construed as either contrary to my views or an overly deliberate attempt at sarcasm.
So I gave two stars for the interpretation and an additional star for those who value pyrotechnics and how fast these pieces could go.
Free Music Review: Doesn't Sound Like Haydn
Hit: 2 Stars
Hamelin play so fast that the "feel of Haydn" cannot be detected. When I first listened to this CD my thought was that Hamelin's playing was about Hamelin and not Haydn. If you want to hear Hamelin you'll probably like this. If you want to hear Haydn, your best bet is another recording.
There is an old saying in golf that you "drive for show and putt for doe". Hamelin is playing for show. His own.
Free Music Review: Cardboard, dinky, and silly
Hit: 1 Stars
Mr. Grabowski wrote a decent review (September 18, 2007) of this CD. Except that I think both his comments and rating were a little too kind. This playing is vapid, senseless, and just plain silly in the extreme.
The tempos are so fast as to be downright silly. The reviewer who commented that there was no limit to presto doesn't seem to understand the classic-period definition of the term: to indicate a division of two beats per measure (whether 6/8, 2/4, etc.) in a fast movement. A presto in a Haydn sonata is not the same thing as a presto in a Mendelssohn Etude or Chopin Ballade. Hamelin just plays fast movements like an automaton, without any concern for musical direction, accents, dynamics, all the things that make music worth listening to.
Take, for example, the big late C Major sonata. The thirds in the first movement are not an exercise in thirds. Haydn indicates them as slurred in groups of two and played in a crescendo. Hamelin plays them without any attention to this detail, with a dinky, false staccatoey sound that so many of today's pianists seem to exhibit.
And like Mr. Grabowski, I too am not impressed by any technique here. Technique doesn not mean "fast" or "without any wrong notes." Are these aspects of technique? Yes. Can sloppy playing detract from technique? Yes. But equally, if not more important, are clarity, evenness, touch, dynamics, etc., and Hamelin misses the boat on all these. He doesn't hear the bass, and his right-hand playing has no real accents to give the playing meaning and direction. The playing is colorless with little dynamic shading, generally played at around a mezzo forte, and there isn't a phrase or rhythmic idea to be discerned.
All in all, what is really interesting here? Nothing. No matter what I say of course, I will probably be badmouthed for not giving it 5 stars (people who really listen and are critical usually are). Hamelin seems to be a central, almost cult figure in classical music these days, but I think we all need to listen to the mediocrity in piano playing that he represents beyond flapping his fingers to achieve breakneck speeds.