Wednesday 17 February 2010

Beethoven - Piano Concerto 4 [Perahia/ Haitink-Concertgebouw Orchestra]

Though not as glorious as the fifth, the fourth is a wonderful Concerto, i used to like the third better, now i'm being swayed to the beauties of this Concerto.

Murray Perahia is completely at the service of the Composer, no off the wall showy virtuoso meanderings, it's sometimes hard to focus on some exciting trait in his playing, because he takes himself out of the focus of attention, and it's only Beethoven you can see, maybe that's the greatest compliment of all.

It opens with such a sublime solo tune on the piano, a revolutionary technique for the time, a solo piano opening the Concerto?, what!, but it works, it's hard to analyse and break this Concerto down into moments for critiquing, Beethoven has this great tendency to sweep you away in the majesty of his creation, you feel the piece as a whole, instead of little burst of creativity all glued together with devices, i just sat back and enjoyed Perahia/Beethoven overwhelm me.

Here's Perahia playing the Concerto on YouTube.