This Saturday, June 9, Stewart Goodyear will play all 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas in three sittings as part of the Luminato Festival. Link to a CBC article.
I have to say, I’m very skeptical about the whole thing. I love Beethoven, I love his piano music, and I have several copies of the complete Sonatas played by masters like Brendel, Kempff and Barenboim.
But I’ve listened to all of them in a short period of time - when I bought the vinyl copy of the Kempff recording, I had to listen to all 22 sides in 4 nights. In case there were a scratch on one of them, I only had 10 days to bring it back. It was an obligation, not a pleasure.
And so with this - it’s one of the great pleasures of an iPod/iTunes. I have ‘playlist folders’ set up under the composers’ names, and playlists made up of single pieces. It means that it will play just one sonata and then stop. It is then my choice when, if at all, to end the silence and play something else. I wouldn’t want to sample 32 wines, 32 courses, 32 whiskies, well, you get the point.
What say the rest of you? Does the idea intrigue you or repel you?
And whatever else happens at the marathon concert, you can bet Goodyear is going to be tired.
Way too much of a good thing, even in three sittings. The audience will be as exhausted as the pianist. I’ll stick to my Brendels and Kempffs, one at a time.
I was feeling bad that I was somehow missing the spirit of this. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one.
And I’d love to hear him play all 32 sonatas, just over the course of several concerts. Perhaps if he did one Beethoven Sonata, one Haydn sonata and one or two of the Preludes and Fugues from the Well Tempered Clavier per concert once a week, that would be a really interesting subscription series…
I think Lili Kraus did jam-packed, close-together classical concerts, but even she didn’t try this! I’m a piano (/music education) major, immersed in piano world daily, and even I’d fail to fully appreciate late Beethoven sonatas if I heard every single preceding one right before them!
