Beethoven Bagatelle op126 nbr 3

[wippenboy]

During the pandemic and in honor of Beethoven's 250th I've been working on lots of Beethoven passage work on the keyboard; mostly from the keyboard sonatas but also some from the concertos. Right around Beethoven's 250th birthday after catching Jonathon Biss's all Beethoven NPR Tiny Desk concert which included a couple of the Bagatelles from the op. 126 set of six I downloaded the urtext score of the 3rd and set to work on it right away. This set was written in 1824 and was the composer's final say for the piano at the time when he was mostly focused on the late quartets. These beautifully crafted small inward-looking pieces have so much to say in such a small space and, like the late sonatas and quartets, offer a slight glimpse of the silent musical landscape that Beethoven's genius inhabited in his later life. Here is my reading of the 3rd of the set on my 1981 48" Kawai upright unedited as captured by my Pixel phone's mic.

[j_tour]

That's very nice.

You put some more interesting bits into the arpeggiated flourishes than I ever thought to do.  It's a good idea.

Above all, I think you maintain the clarion horn call and response throughout the piece, although I personally like to the hear the very treble enclosures as sort of a bit more wild (but very faint in volume), as a kind of contrast to the stark sixths and bass notes, but that could just be from the slightly faster tempo I got accustomed to.

Yeah, good to hear a new take on a familiar piece.

One down, five more to go!  (Not joking:  you should play them all!)

[dw4rn]

That's a very touching version. Thank you! Wonderful pianissimo and stillness at the end.
I think it would be even better though if you "sang" the opening more simply and sempre piano, avoiding a crescendo until Beethoven wrote so in bar 9. Also, the hairpin cresc-dim in bar 14-15 is worth observing.
Anyway, I need to say I find this inspiring!

[quantum]

Lovely playing. 

A touch more voicing for the top notes of some of the chords would help shape the melody more.  The way you shaped the arpeggios had a very Beethoven like character to it.