Hi, I recently took out a book by Kenneth Drake on Beethoven Sonatas, which gave some excellent info on pedaling, ornamentation, etc. however, I'm hoping to find something even more detailed. Are there other sources out there that anyone can recommend? Thanks!
Henle is an urtext edition of his works and doesn't contain any info on performance practice.
Probably your two best standard sources are:
Sandra Rosenblum "Performance Practices in Classic Piano Music"
Rosenblum William S. Newman "Beethoven on Beethoven: Playing his piano music his way"
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=99091968
Kreisler, thanks! I was looking for that at the library today and it was "missing." That was my first choice. I also found an old book by Blom, (1938) "Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas Discussed". I was hoping for something more up to date. Will check out Newman's.
The one thing I would say about Kenneth Drake's book is he is very familiar with the original instruments that Beethoven performed on, so his book has some insights on pedaling (for example) that are useful. Of course, Beethoven being deaf adds a dimension, etc.
The other books Kreisler mentioned are very good.
I'm not sure why Henle Urtext was mentioned by a poster. That doesn't make sense, since Beethoven was known to be inconsistent in his notations of pedaling, etc. However, I find the Tovey editions of Beethoven to be useful for performance practice. The newer ABRCM (or whatever the acronym) edition I can't comment on because I haven't seen it.
Also important is Czerny's Op. 500 treatise on piano playing which contains his "On the Proper Performance of All Beethoven's Works for the Piano"
It's not a scholarly work by modern standards, but it is a fascinating and near-contemporary source containing many wonderful descriptions of how Beethoven sounded to early 19th century ears.
There was a very interesting series of talks by Schiff about each of the Beethoven sonatas. You can hear them all here...
http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/page/0,,1943867,00.html
There was a very interesting series of talks by Schiff about each of the Beethoven sonatas. You can hear them all here...
http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/page/0,,1943867,00.html
THanks, I'll check it out!
Also important is Czerny's Op. 500 treatise on piano playing which contains his "On the Proper Performance of All Beethoven's Works for the Piano"
It's not a scholarly work by modern standards, but it is a fascinating and near-contemporary source containing many wonderful descriptions of how Beethoven sounded to early 19th century ears.
Do you have that treatise? I hope to read that someday.