SCHNABEL Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas and more - PABX006

This album is included in the following sets:

SCHNABEL Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas and more - PABX006

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Regular price €0.00 €176.00 Sale

Overview

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas Nos. 1-32
BEETHOVEN Eroica Variations
BEETHOVEN Diabelli Variations
BEETHOVEN 25 Bagatelles
BEETHOVEN 3 Rondos, Minuet in E flat


Recorded 1932-1938


Artur Schnabel, piano

This set contains the following albums:

Click below to expand note:
SCHNABEL Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1 (1933/34) - PAKM037

The legendary Schnabel Beethoven series starts here

"They embody what may well prove to be the sonically finest transfer
that these recordings from the 1930s have received" Fanfare


Artur Schnabel's 1930s Beethoven Sonata recordings are not a remastering project to be undertaken lightly. There are of course many other transfers already available, and I have held off beginning this series for a number of years, until I could be confident not just of repeating the previous efforts of my colleagues, but of achieving something dramatically new and substantial to the recordings through Pristine's 32-bit XR remastering process.

This is a project which has been started and abandoned several times before in my efforts to produce the very finest, most authentic piano tone, with as clean and quiet a background as possible. This I believe I have finally achieved here, and it is only in the occasional side or short section that one is reminded that these recordings were made nearly 80 years ago. My hope is that the much increased clarity, fidelity and realism of these Pristine releases will allow the listener a far greater appreciation of Schnabel's genius than ever before - and that you will forget the vintage of the recording and matters of sound quality and enjoy these legendary recordings as if hearing them for the very first time.

Andrew Rose

SCHNABEL Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2 (1933/35) - PAKM038

The legendary Schnabel Beethoven series continues

"They embody what may well prove to be the sonically finest transfer
that these recordings from the 1930s have received" Fanfare


Artur Schnabel's 1930s Beethoven Sonata recordings are not a remastering project to be undertaken lightly. There are of course many other transfers already available, and I have held off beginning this series for a number of years, until I could be confident not just of repeating the previous efforts of my colleagues, but of achieving something dramatically new and substantial to the recordings through Pristine's 32-bit XR remastering process.

This is a project which has been started and abandoned several times before in my efforts to produce the very finest, most authentic piano tone, with as clean and quiet a background as possible. This I believe I have finally achieved here, and it is only in the occasional side or short section that one is reminded that these recordings were made nearly 80 years ago. My hope is that the much increased clarity, fidelity and realism of these Pristine releases will allow the listener a far greater appreciation of Schnabel's genius than ever before - and that you will forget the vintage of the recording and matters of sound quality and enjoy these legendary recordings as if hearing them for the very first time.

Andrew Rose

SCHNABEL Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 3 (1932-35) - PAKM039

The legendary Schnabel Beethoven series continues

"They embody what may well prove to be the sonically finest transfer
that these recordings from the 1930s have received" Fanfare


Artur Schnabel's 1930s Beethoven Sonata recordings are not a remastering project to be undertaken lightly. There are of course many other transfers already available, and I have held off beginning this series for a number of years, until I could be confident not just of repeating the previous efforts of my colleagues, but of achieving something dramatically new and substantial to the recordings through Pristine's 32-bit XR remastering process.

This is a project which has been started and abandoned several times before in my efforts to produce the very finest, most authentic piano tone, with as clean and quiet a background as possible. This I believe I have finally achieved here, and it is only in the occasional side or short section that one is reminded that these recordings were made nearly 80 years ago. My hope is that the much increased clarity, fidelity and realism of these Pristine releases will allow the listener a far greater appreciation of Schnabel's genius than ever before - and that you will forget the vintage of the recording and matters of sound quality and enjoy these legendary recordings as if hearing them for the very first time.

This release marks the commercial debut globally for a remarkable new technology from German company Celemony which aims to reduce or eliminate wow and flutter from analogue recordings. Certainly here it's had a great effect on Schnabel's piano tone, creating a much better sense than ever before of a very real instrument being played, one that was crafted very solidly out of heavy wood and metal! Pitch aside, the sonic results achieved in this third volume offer some indication of the variable nature of both pressings and recording quality in a series which spanned some 3 years of recording and 5 years of releases in the 1930s, and it will probably be clear to the listener that some sides were more troublesome than others. At all times my priority has been the tone of Schnabel's piano, and in places this has resulted in a degree of background "shash" remaining audible, despite my best efforts.

Andrew Rose

SCHNABEL Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 4 (1932-35) - PAKM040

The legendary Schnabel Beethoven series continues

"They embody what may well prove to be the sonically finest transfer
that these recordings from the 1930s have received" Fanfare


Volume Three of this series marked the first commercial use of new software designed to deal with wow and flutter in mechanical recordings. It was a collaborative effort between myself and Mathis Nitschke of Celemony in Germany - restoration work was already underway and these files were sent to Mathis for treatment, before I was able to continue remastering. Since then I have "straightened out" Volumes One and Two from their final masters.

This fourth volume, however, marks the first in which the new pitch stabilisation process has commenced in what is probably its rightful place: at the beginning. In theory this should result in more accurate XR re-equalisation than ever possible before, though I strongly doubt whether any improvement would be such that it would be easily audible. But what this fourth volume has also benefited from is a general overall improvement in source quality over the third, and it is this - more than the precise point at which "Capstan" technology was applied - which has contributed most to the results heard here.

Of the three sonatas in this volume, it was the last-recorded, No. 12, which gave the most trouble as a consequence of greater surface "shash", but in the run of things all three were remarkably good and have produced a volume of which I'm particularly pleased and proud.

Andrew Rose

SCHNABEL Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 5 (1933/35) - PAKM041

The legendary Schnabel Beethoven series continues

"They embody what may well prove to be the sonically finest transfer
that these recordings from the 1930s have received" Fanfare


This set of sonatas has presented one of the greater challenges in the series so far, with the difficulty of reconciling the sensitivity and gentleness Schnabel brings to one of the most famous sonata movements in the classical repertoire - the first movement of No. 14 which inspired the "Moonlight" epit