Favorite Beethoven

Good places to start are marked with an asterisk *

Chamber music:

* Piano Trios - The Beaux Arts Trio; *The first disc, and No. 7 from this
set, the Archduke Trio, are exceptional

* Cello Sonatas - Pierre Fournier, Wilhelm Kempff (the first disc in

particular)

Violin Sonatas - Itzhak Perlman, Vladimir Ashkenazy; * Numbers 5 & 9,

the Spring and Kreutzer Sonatas are his best known

String Quartets - the Alban Berg Quartet for the early and middle
quartets; also, the Miro Quartet for the middle quartets (Op. 18)

Piano Sonatas

* No. 15 (Pastoral), Stephen Kovacevich

No.s 8 (Pathetique) , 9. 10, 11, Alfred Brendel

No.s 13, 14 (Moonlight) , 21, 23, & *26 (the ‘Waldstein’ sonata) , Emil
Gilels

These and more, I’m sure, all great.

Concertos:

Violin Concerto - Arthur Grummiaux, my favorite violinist, recorded

this concerto a few times. The one with Alceo Galliera, conductor, and
the New Philharmonia Orchestra is my favorite among these.
Also, the one with Hilary Hanh, violin, is a close second, which is
saying something, especially since she recorded this when she was all of
18!

* Triple Concerto, Piano Concerto number 3, Christian Zacharias,

Hoelscher, Schiff; Kurt Masur, conductor

Piano Concertos

* No. 1 &2, Murray Perahia, piano

* No. 4 - Vladimir Ashkenazy piano; Zubin Mehta: Vienna Philharmonic

Orchestra

Symphonies

1 - 9, Claudio Abbado, Conductor

With symphony number 3, the Eroica, Beethoven is born, and the world
would never be the same.

There live versions of these on DVD, and are worth seeing and listening
to as well. They have a little of that ‘live edge’, compared to the studio
versions.

* Symphony n. 6, Herbert Von Karajan, Conductor

* Symphony No. 9, Kurt Masur, Conductor

There’s a video online of this, and a dvd of the recorded performance.

Missa Solemnis - David Zinman: Tonhalle Orchestra & Chorus