BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas: No. 2 in A; No. 17 in d; No. 24 in F♯; No 30 in E • Timothy Ehlen (pn) • AZICA ACD-71256 (77:18)

Complete Piano Sonatas 2
Audio CD
Azica
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This is the second in a projected complete series of Beethoven sonatas by Timothy Ehlen, a professor at the University of Illinois whose playing has been compared in the New York Times to that of Gieseking and Casadesus. Those comparisons are telling. To my ears, Gieseking was at his best with Debussy rather than with the classics. What I hear in his playing is a beautifully controlled technique, a pure sound, and a clarity of conception that keeps Debussy unsentimental, if not dry. Ehlen’s Beethoven has similar qualities: a precision in even the fastest runs, as if each note matters, and an abundance of nuance in dynamics. Yet the Fanfare reviewer of the previous volume found himself ambivalent, and so do I. The cheerful movements of the early sonata in A Major are fine, but despite the clarity of line, I find the ensuing slow movement lacking in rhythmic tension. I feel the same about such movements as the Allegro vivace of op. 67 in F♯. In his review of the previous volume, Paul Orgel started by asking the question, “Why another Beethoven cycle?” I didn’t feel that way when, some years ago, I went through the cycle by Ashkenazy, or heard the late sonatas by Pollini. There is more crackling energy in the Pollini on op. 109 than here, and somehow more glory as well. Ehlen is a fine pianist, though, and I remember something else about listening to the complete Ashkenazy set, which was that its power grew on me record by record. Perhaps this cycle will have a similar effect. Michael Ullman