German audiophile label MDG departs from its usual focus on unusual repertory here for a recording of Beethoven's last three piano sonatas by Elisabeth Leonskaja, born in what is now Georgia and later a fixture of the Viennese music scene. The instrument is semi-historical, a 1901 Steinway D, and it's the star of the show at the sonically superb Ehemaliges Ackerhaus der Abtei Marienmünster (Former Farmhouse of the Marienmünster Abbey), a favorite haunt of MDG's engineers. The instrument has an especially rich lower register ...
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German audiophile label MDG departs from its usual focus on unusual repertory here for a recording of Beethoven's last three piano sonatas by Elisabeth Leonskaja, born in what is now Georgia and later a fixture of the Viennese music scene. The instrument is semi-historical, a 1901 Steinway D, and it's the star of the show at the sonically superb Ehemaliges Ackerhaus der Abtei Marienmünster (Former Farmhouse of the Marienmünster Abbey), a favorite haunt of MDG's engineers. The instrument has an especially rich lower register that emerges beautifully here, and Leonskaja makes excellent use of it in the first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109; several accents in the left hand take on structural significance that is original in her reading. Leonskaja is a tough, powerful player, a sort of female Sviatoslav Richter, and her approach is well-suited to the instrument and sonic environment here. The opening movements have deep colors, and the scherzos snap with abrupt surprises. The...
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