OK - so we've done top 10s (although there're pobably several more to be covered yet), but now it's down to the wire. If you have to restrict yourself to just 20 mins of music for the rest of your life, what would it be.
Despite my love of the grandiose and awe-inspiring, mine has to be the 2nd movement of Beethoven's last piano sonata - Op 111. It's just achingly beautiful, superbly balanced and...and...words just fail. The opening is so still, but tense and pregnant with expectation I sometimes have to remind myself to breathe. Then as it goes through those doubles the excitement level builds up till we get to the jazz bit and those cross-rhythms take you over completely. Then when that's all done - we get 10 minutes of the most sublime detumescence, and Ludwig takes us through visions of other worlds (a bit like Kubrick at the end of 2001 - but orders of magnitude better). And to think he never heard a note of it....or is that the only reason he could havce written it?
The late quartets of course have something of the same other-worldliness about them - and the Grosse Fugue has long been another of my favourites - but none of them transport you in quite the same way as this.
I was just reminded of all this having been a wonderful concert given at the QEH by Paul Lewis this evening, where the 2nd half was Op 90 and Op 111. There were plenty of microphones around, so it may be broadcast on R3 in a week or two's time. First half was Chopin, Busoni and Scriabin - all played superbly.
Despite my love of the grandiose and awe-inspiring, mine has to be the 2nd movement of Beethoven's last piano sonata - Op 111. It's just achingly beautiful, superbly balanced and...and...words just fail. The opening is so still, but tense and pregnant with expectation I sometimes have to remind myself to breathe. Then as it goes through those doubles the excitement level builds up till we get to the jazz bit and those cross-rhythms take you over completely. Then when that's all done - we get 10 minutes of the most sublime detumescence, and Ludwig takes us through visions of other worlds (a bit like Kubrick at the end of 2001 - but orders of magnitude better). And to think he never heard a note of it....or is that the only reason he could havce written it?
The late quartets of course have something of the same other-worldliness about them - and the Grosse Fugue has long been another of my favourites - but none of them transport you in quite the same way as this.
I was just reminded of all this having been a wonderful concert given at the QEH by Paul Lewis this evening, where the 2nd half was Op 90 and Op 111. There were plenty of microphones around, so it may be broadcast on R3 in a week or two's time. First half was Chopin, Busoni and Scriabin - all played superbly.
As you said, simply awesome.
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