bb199-204: very flattering, thanks! I have to admit, though, that I'm lost as to what you are praising!:-) On close scrutiny, I find I'm inconsistent; they ought to be played exactly the same, no?
You play Beethoven with excellent precision and clarity. This is really beautiful music. Have you recorded any other Beethoven? What about Bach?
Exactly, the fact that they weren't played exactly the same was what made it so interesting.
Thank you very much! I have recorded four two-part inventions; not terribly pleased with the result though. It was during a microphone shoot-out, and I just got this feeling that the ribbon mics would be wonderful for just that, so I spent a few hours learning and recording them. I have played them before, so it was possible to do that. Precision could have been better! Like the sound of ribbon microphones? -same piano and church as the other recordings.
In fact, I find Beethoven to be particularly fascinating in terms of notation! Apparently he was meticoulous about each notational detail, but I somehow don't think it's meant to be literal; rather, it's a question of real interpretation. You observe a marking, and invariably you go: "hm, what does he mean?". Bars 119-121, e.g., why is the B-Bb-A separated from the rest of the notes in the left hand? Is it to somehow mark that as a bass-line? Or pure notational aesthetics?
Beehoven too was not exactly literal concerning his own music. Perhaps you've heard of witnesses stating that when he played his own pieces, he wasn't at all concerned about following his own markings. As you say, he sketched, scrapped, changed until a piece acquired it's final form, quite often a shocking metamorphosis from the original few bars of an idea. You probably know the story of the hammerklavier sonata; just before printing, Beethoven suddenly sent an addition: the two notes which presently start the slow movement. And what a change!! We are thus very close to having had a op106 where the adagio would have started directly with the f#minor chord.