Beethoven Piano Sonatas 1-32 (complete) played by Rudolf Buchbinder in the Mozarteum Großer Saal at the 2014 Salzburg Festival. In the Alphalist I gave this box the name "Beethoven Piano Sonatas Vol. 1-3 so it would appear in the best place. The correct C Major title is Beethoven: The Complete Piano Sonatas. All 32 sonata recordings have been packaged previous by C Major in three separate releases called Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3. In other words, it appears this complete box just sells you the same three discs that were previous published in in separate packages. Grade: D+
This is the last in a series of 4 separate titles in which Buchbinder plays all the Beethoven piano sonatas. See my detailed reviewed of Vol. 1 which was published earlier. Because the 32 sonatas were recorded in 32 separate "chapters" and appear in what appears to be random order over the 3 volumes, I would assume that the sonatas presented in Vol. 1 are represetative of the whole series or are, perhaps, the best recordings of all of them. Because of the many deficiencies noted in Vol. 1, I graded it D+. Since Vol. 1 is probably representative, I gave the same D+ to Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 as a tentative grade. Now that all the sonatas are published in this box of three discs, it follows that I should give this box a D+ grade also.
The grade of D+ here mean, "Don't buy this unless you have a real good reason." If you are a piano professional who plays the Beethoven sonatas, you might well benefit from observing the fine points of Buchbinder's playing. If you are just a typical amateur music lover, this box might be a good choice if it is cheap enough. C Major was asking about $40 for each of the separate volumes, but I think the real price out there has reached close to 1/2 of list. Early indications are that the asking price for the complete set in Blu-ray might be, say $65. That gets you close to the price for modern sets of this music on CD. So if the street price falls from that, you can't get hurt. If you don't like the sorry video, just turn it off.
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