Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 14, 15, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 32. Friedrich Gulda, piano (London Double Decker)
Composer and jazz pianist Friedrich Gulda recorded a number of Beethoven sonatas in the early days of LP, when he was a featured classical artist for Decca/London. He re-recorded some of the works in stereo for Decca during the late 1950s and made a complete cycle in the ’70s for the Amadeo label, though none of these performances had wide currency in the United States.
Gulda always was adept at scaling works to the periods in which they were written and adjusting his poetic approach accordingly. In the slightly more expansive readings from the late ’50s, the result is searching, subtly colored Beethoven, strong but never bombastic. The performances have some of the Classical restraint of today’s more historically aware interpreters, without a trace of dessication or schoolmasterishness. An excellent value at two CDs for the price of one.
