Tatiana Nikolayeva Beethoven

I have been listening to Nikolayeva's Bach recordings with pleasure and wondered what her Beethoven Sonatas were like, in terms of the recorded sound and the interpretations.

If you're referring to the complete set plus Diabelli on Olympia, they're big, bold, gruff, performances, fairly well recorded but - to these ears, at least - fatally undermined by finger slips of various sorts. Too bad they weren't recorded earlier. (There's also an even later single disc on Novalis where, perhaps to get around her reduced agility, she takes absurdly slow tempi.) Depending on your tolerance for mistakes you may want to stick with her Bach (and Shostakovich etc.).

Pretty bad playing. Pick up just one CD to try, if you can. She recorded the Shostakovich Op. 87 P&Fs, and those are very good.

Actually three times, didn't she? Unfortunetly the CDs issues of at least two of them are 3CD full priced sets....

Oh well, going off on a tangent, I have the Ashkenazy and can't complain.

Ah, a chance to be picky about a tangent. You really should do your best to obtain the Roger Woodward recording of the Op. 87. The guy was/is very uneven in his recordings, but this one is the best 87 I've heard.

I agree with Simon. Some great conceptions come through at times, but mostly the set is an exercise in frustration. One fault that's repeated frequently is Nikolayeva's slowed down trills, where she disrupts the tempo in order to get in x number of alternations. For me, the best from the set were Op. 49/2, 78, and 110, all of which were terrific interpretations and relatively unmarred but technical problems. Some others were excrutiating, especially Op. 2/3, 79, 101 and 106.

- Phil Caron

I had these on LPs and loved them, long long ago. Have they been resissued on CD?

Yours,

Not that I know of. But the LPs are still out there, and I am surely not the only one who has transferred them for his own use. RCA CRL2-5100. ©1975. That copyright date does suggest that our semi-pro activists are leery of offering it. Sometimes the interminable re-release by the 'majors' of the same old recordings, while really good stuff by lesser-known artists is ignored - well it causes me to bitch.

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You're not the only one who finds this irritating!