Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 5 (CD review)

Norman Krieger, piano; Joann Falletta, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Decca DD41154/481 5583.

The composer is Beethoven and the music is his Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 5. No questions there; pretty well-known pieces from one of the most well-known musicians the world has ever known. The conductor is Joann Falletta and the ensemble is the Buffalo Philharmonic. No questions there, either. Ms. Falletta and her orchestra have a boatload of recordings to their credit and a ton of fans. The soloist is pianist Norman Krieger, and there you may have some questions. He's been around for a while and has several albums to his name, but he probably isn't yet a household name.

According to Wikipedia, Mr. Krieger is "an American pianist and a professor at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. He is a recipient of numerous prizes, including one from the Paderewski Foundation. He studied under the guidance of Esther Lipton in Los Angeles. By the age of 15, he obtained a scholarship from the Juilliard School, where he was educated by Adele Marcus. He was Alfred Brendel's and Maria Curcio's student in London, and he obtained an artist's diploma from the New England Conservatory. By 2011 he became a professor of music at the USC Thornton. He has collaborated with such musicians as Sheri Greenawald, Livia Sohn, and Jian Wang as well as both Tokyo and Manhattan String Quartets. He also was invited to the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and was a frequent participant at the Mostly Mozart Festival. He has recorded two Johannes Brahms concertos, which he has also performed with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra."

So, fair enough. He's a fine pianist, and the music, though overly familiar and thoroughly represented in the catalogue, can always welcome a new interpreter.

First up on the program is Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 37, which he wrote in 1800 and premiered in 1803 with the composer himself as soloist. (Interestingly, when Beethoven first performed it, he had not yet had time to write down the complete score, and most of it he performed from memory.) Anyway, Krieger has the benefit of over two hundred years of tradition behind him, and his performance is in the mainstream of those performing practices.

The concerto begins with a lengthy introduction, which Ms. Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic play with an easy, breezy charm, turning up the energy just before Mr. Krieger's entrance. That entry has plenty of punch, so you know Krieger is showing his authority and dominance from there on out. In the Largo that follows, Krieger takes things at a comfortable pace and communicates a welcome sense of peace and calm. It is only in the final Allegro that Krieger seems to miss a bit of edge and energy, and the movement loses a little something of its spirited fun.

Norman Krieger
Then we get the Piano Concerto No. 5, the "Emperor" Concerto, which Beethoven dedicated to Archduke Rudolf. No one is quite sure why the concerto's publisher in England, J. B. Cramer, gave it the nickname "Emperor" except as a marketing tool. Maybe to go with the composer's "Eroica" Symphony, or maybe because Napoleon had invaded Beethoven's Vienna during its composition. Who knows? Whatever, Mr. Krieger's interpretation is again in the mainstream of modern performance practice.

The opening is big and dramatic, as it should be, helped, no doubt, by Decca's live, close up sound, and the Buffalo Orchestra's glowing support. The first movement loses very little tension along its way, although Krieger takes it at a slightly slower tempo than some other pianists. Then Krieger gives us a lovely Adagio, followed by an appropriately bouncy finale.

Throughout the performance of the Fifth Concerto Krieger's playing sounds graceful and flowing, and Ms. Falletta's direction is equally refined, the Buffalo ensemble sounding as good as any in the country. That said, the recording may appeal more to Beethoven collectors than to the general public, who have an enormous catalogue of choices before them. For instance, for a big, traditional production, I still enjoy Ashkenazy and Solti on Decca; for a more intimate, heartfelt rendition, I like Kempf and Leitner on DG; for near-audiophile sound I would choose Serkin and Ozawa on Telarc or FIM; and for probably the best all-around recommendation, Kovocevich and Davis on Philips.

Producer and engineer Bernd Gottinger recorded the concertos live at Kleinhans Music Hall, Buffalo, New York in October 2004 and March 2015. Studio recordings of symphony orchestras used to be the norm for all the big record companies until cost factors got in the way, and now the companies all seem to favor live recordings, leaving only the smaller labels to do studio jobs. Oh, well. Decca also retain the applause after each work. I suppose they think the clapping increases the listener's appreciation for the live event. I don't share their enthusiasm.

Fortunately, Decca didn't record the orchestra for the Third Concerto too very closely, so there is still a measure of room ambience present, as well as a natural warmth and roundness to the music. The piano, though, sounds very close relative to the orchestra. Still, it sounds OK. With the Fifth Concerto eleven years later, however, the sound of both the orchestra and the piano appears closer, with less room resonance in play. Nevertheless, there is good detail and definition to the proceedings, and I'm sure most listeners will enjoy the clarity and impact of the sound.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:


Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa