'The Classical Style' reading group, Week Seventeen

Beethoven in 1818, i.e. around the time his Piano Sonata No. 29 was written. (Source). 

Part VII  BEETHOVEN 

Beethoven 

By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger

 We have entered the Hammerklavier Zone. We will not leave until the Schroedinger's Cat study group finishes, if then. For the last six years I found myself dwelling in an exercise in the fifth circuit chapter of Prometheus Rising where Bob told the reader to attend a Sufi weekend seminar . Now I find myself in a dinner party in Schroedinger's Cat surrounded by concert pianists, all of whom got invited so the host could discuss the Hammerklavier with them. Steven De Groote got invited, and he brought along a few of his students including my friend Jai Jeffryes. Steven kindly allowed me to tag along. I recognize Charles Rosen, Vladamir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich, Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Arthur Rubenstein, Sviatoslav Richter, Radu Lupu, Rudolf Serkin, Peter Serkin, and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.  

 I remember when Jai first told me about the Hammerklavier back in August 1980. He saw a Rudolf Serkin LP of the Hammerklavier in a used record store. A week or so later Jai, his friend Jim, and I sat in Jai's dorm room listening to either the Serkin or Brendel recording of the sonata. Jim commented that every pianist but Pollini sounded like "they were about to fall off the end of the piano bench at the end of the sonata." In 2005 Rafi Zabor turned me on to Solomon's recordings of Beethoven's late piano sonatas. I mentioned Jim's comment about the Hammerklavier to Rafi, and he said Solomon didn't sound ready to fall off the piano bench at the end of his recording.