(Grigory Sokolov | 2018 | Live) Beethoven: 11 Bagatelles,

Grigory Sokolov in a wonderfully nuanced performance of Beethoven’s 11 Bagatelles, . Aside from the purely musical experience something I particularly remember from his performances this season is his unusual way with the pedals. Both feet were positioned at the pedals practically throughout the opus while he played, where the una corda and the sustain were used as much and in about the same way - in a breathing kind of fashion, as opposed to the section-wise on/off one is used to with the una corda - thereby controlling not only harmony but also timbre on a continuous basis. Another avant-garde pedal technique comes at 13:55 where he uses a rapid pumping with the sustain pedal to decrease the natural decay time of the note. Elsewhere, in a Chopin Nocturne, I’ve seen him keep the soft pedal down throughout a section, but lift it for a split second at each melody note, in order to make the melody sound in full colour while the accompaniment is given a more muted character. If you’re planning to hear Sokolov during the season I can warmly recommend booking a seat as close to the instrument as possible, since so much of his allure at the piano today is in these shadings and fine nuances. To take full advantage of them you need to be close; from a distance they’re largely lost, and you only get the contours of the playing. So, what are we listening to here? Well, these are a motley collection of pieces composed across a quarter of a century. 1-5 have their origin in abandoned sketches from Beethoven’s 20s and early 30s, which he dusted off and revised for publication only in 1822 in response to a request for a set of Bagatelles from Leipzig publisher C.F. Peters, while Beethoven’s mind was occupied composing both Missa Solemnis and the 9th Symphony. Peters however was so disappointed in them that he wrote back to Beethoven and said he’d rather forfeit the fee he had already paid than have them published by his company. Aside from when they were too difficult they were much too easy; definitely too small for being Bagatelles, and besides none were hit songs. By the following year Beethoven had found a new publisher in Muzio Clementi in London, to whom he now presented a collection of 11 pieces - the revised 1-5 Peters had declined, 7-11 which had been composed separately for Friedrich Starke in Vienna in 1820, plus a brand new composition in the 6th Bagatelle which served as a bridge between the two sets. Clementi liked what he saw, hit the green button, and with this - finally - we had the 11 Bagatelles we today know as Beethoven’s . Given their history there has been some debate about whether they should be viewed as a collection of separate pieces, two books within one opus, or as an integral cycle comprised of 11 pieces. Sokolov here makes a strong case for the latter alternative, which is very much how I’d recommend listening to them - but time marks for individual numbers follow below for the impatient. Beethoven: 11 Bagatelles, 00:00 - No.1 in G minor (-1803/1822) 02:20 - No.2 in C major (-1803/1822) 03:36 - No.3 in D major (-1803/1822) 05:16 - No.4 in A major (-1803/1822) 06:45 - No.5 in C minor (-1803/1822) 08:01 - No.6 in G major (1822) 09:39 - No.7 in C major (1820) 10:41 - No.8 in C major (1820) 12:18 - No.9 in A minor (1820) 12:53 - in A major (1820) 13:15 - in B-flat major (1820) Grigory Sokolov, piano Source: Audience Recording --------------- Beethoven’s pages: Sokolov’s pages: