Anne Øland Plays Beethoven

Posted by: Todd A on 10 July 2005

When I found this set for an unbelievably low price (about $18 for 10 discs) at HMV Japan, I figured I should give it a try. First, this would serve as a test of HMV’s service, something I thought worthwhile since HMV Japan has a number of tasty titles I’ve seen nowhere else. Second, one more LvB sonata cycle couldn’t hurt. Finding information on Ms Øland’s recordings has proven difficult. I’ve seen only two written summarizations of her Beethoven, including one from Kwoon, and the one common word is “stiff.” One word is generally insufficient to describe a pianist’s artistry, especially in these works, and, given the price, I figured how bad could it be?

Well, um, let’s just say it ain’t so hot. Things start off deceptively well, though. Øland opens the first sonata with vigorous, strongly characterized and energetic playing. Both of the first two movements sound very good, and certainly not very stiff, so I was expecting to enjoy the rest of the work. Alas, it was not to be. For whatever reason, Øland goes off the rails in the Menuetto. She plays with a heavy hand and a, yes, stiff conception. Everything is deliberate – unyieldingly so. She punishes the music and the listener with what I assume is meant to be a serious sound, but what ends up sounding just plain unpleasant. The concluding Prestissimo just continues along the same path. All subtlety, nuance, and humor are squashed by a style that seems characterized mostly by steely forte and unrelenting use of sforzandi. The opening to the second sonata offers a bit of a reprieve. The not-so-well-recorded sound is a bit harsh at times, but Øland keeps things moving. But man, is the Largo awful. She overemphasizes some notes and completely short-changes others, and it seems that she seems intent on emphasizing everything, to the point where the musical line is lost. The Scherzo is oppressive, and the concluding Rondo is as well, with a complete disregard for the Grazioso label. Things improve notably in the C major sonata. The outer movements still suffer from rigid, oddly phrased playing, but to a lesser extent than before. The final movement actually has a bit (albeit a very small bit) of charm. The inner movements, however, are reasonably good. Øland actually plays the Adagio nicely. To be sure, her playing is still characterized by somewhat graceless staccato and simplistic dynamic variation – she plays either very loud or very soft most of the time – but she actually does play with a bit of softness and nuance. The Scherzo is perhaps the most conventionally acceptable movement of the work, and so is reasonably good. The opening trio definitely is not promising. Øland is about as awful as Kovacevich, though fortunately not as brutal; she’s unpleasant in a different way.

The Op 7 sonata is a bit like 2/3; that is, it’s reasonably good. Again, all of Ms Øland’s traits are there. She is stiff, rigid, overly deliberate, and, in stark contrast to Perl, she tries to play what isn’t there. The outer movements manage to sound neither especially lyrical nor rhythmically satisfying, and odd phrasing can actually make the listener cringe. Her take on the Largo is the low point: it’s labored and stiff and steely and amusical at times. But the other three movements are just acceptable enough to make the whole thing listenable.

The Op 10 sonatas continue this maddening trend. The first sonata opens in bizarre fashion, with Øland truncating the opening chord and all it’s returns, rendering them all attack and no decay, but the rest of the opening section is actually okay. Then she does something unusual – she makes the rest of the opener good. Even the slow second movement is good. Note: good. Not adequate, or even reasonably good, but good. She plays with some feeling, some nuance, some attractive tone. Even a few oddly long pauses don’t hurt. Alas, the concluding movement is back to her old ways. The second sonata in the set picks up where the first left off. It’s too slow, too labored, and just too deliberate. Things come alive a bit more in the second movement, and the finale actually opens in a somewhat orthodox and enjoyable fashion. Unfortunately, there are some awkward portions further in, and roughly midway through she plays in an overly deliberate manner – almost as though she’s having some digital difficulty – and that ruins the positive effect.

Then something wonderful happens: Øland delivers two good recordings in a row. The great good fortune starts with the seventh sonata. Gone are her fussy, deliberate mannerisms, and in their place is fine, properly characterized playing. She exudes energy, enthusiasm, and a bit of mischievous wit in the opening movement. The Largo second movement doesn’t succumb to the same fate as earlier slow movements; it’s compelling and sounds as though Ms Øland has totally absorbed the piece. The two final movements all combine the right elements, and throughout, Øland’s playing stays limber and free, able to communicate her points with not even one cringe-inducing moment. The Pathetique likewise sounds limber and free, or at least when compared to the earlier sonatas. No, she doesn’t pack an emotional punch like some do, but whether one considers the powerful opening, the light, quick runs, the tastefully played second movement, or the acceptably emotional final movement, Øland has delivered a good recording. I wonder if her relative success in these two sonatas has something to do with when they were recorded. These two sonatas, along with the 110, were recorded in 1995, a couple years before the rest of the cycle got underway. Perhaps these pieces are the ones she’s closest to, and the ones she knows best. Could it be that some ambitious A&R folks at Classico decided prematurely that they needed a cycle and that Øland was not yet ready to commit the 32 to disc? Or perhaps Øland just can’t get into the first half dozen sonatas. Hmmm? Perhaps more listening can provide some more clues . . .


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Posted on: 11 July 2005 by u5227470736789439
Dear Todd,

Reading your review quite saddened me, for I am sure that your judgements will be correct, though I have never heard of the artist concerned.

What saddens me is that there are superb artists out there who stand next to no chance of recording their repertoire, and yet when some recording company or another do record an artist they seem to go for "the whole cycle of" this or that part of the repertoire rather than simply doing the parts the young artist concerned really has under his or her belt.

It is alright for an old hand like you, but what if some relative naive were to come across such a Beethoven Sonata cycle like this? Would they come away with the view that Beethoven's music was wooden, dry or dull, at least in parts, and that it must be so, because that is what a recording sounds like, and surely the artist must be fine, or else they would never have got a contract to record music with such a huge reutation.

In this way the gramophone may well serve to undermine the reputations of the greatest composers, and do real damage to the performing careers of other, much finer performing artists.

Fredrik
Posted on: 11 July 2005 by Todd A
The Op 14 sonatas find Øland displaying both her maddening and satisfying sides. The first sonata falls into the former category. The first movement opens in maddening fashion, Øland playing with that awkward stiffness that mars so much of so many of the sonatas heard thus far. She seems unwilling or unable to just let loose and play. Things pick up a bit in the second half of the movement and in the second and third movements, but she never sounds relaxed. The second sonata is much better. Here she plays the outer movements with enough flexibility and charm to make the piece actually enjoyable. The second movement finds her playing with an attractive punchiness, really bringing out the mischievous side of Ludwig van. She does play pretty much the same throughout, though, and as a result the second half of the movement sounds a bit monotonous, but that’s quite alright. This is one of the three highlights of the cycle thus far. It ain’t great, but I’ve heard worse.

I approached the Op 22 sonata with a bit of trepidation. This work dies if mishandled. Mannered, deliberate, slow playing seemed assured. But Øland manages to pull it off. She keeps her most unpleasant traits largely under control, a few short moments notwithstanding. While she’s not as groovy as I like, and her staccato is still a bit too insistent and cutting here and there, for her, well she boogies. Even the Adagio is handled well; not slow and cringe inducing playing is to be heard. As with the preceding sonata, this ain’t the best out there, but it’s better than I anticipated.

So’s Op 26 – that’s three in a row! Øland’s approach to the funeral march is appropriately somber and serious, and yet she still manages to avoid ticking over into overly mannered playing. The opening two movements and the conclusion all sound reasonably straight forward. Sure Øland’s traits appear here and there, but she has them under better control. (No doubt part of her playing sounding more acceptable has to do with my acclimating to her style.) Again, it’s not the best, but it shows a pianist with some individual ideas that don’t crossover to excess indulgence.

Would Øland be able to keep her streak alive? No. The two Sonatas quasi una fantasia both suffer from Øland’s well known traits, and even take them to new levels. The first sonata fares better. The first and third movements very clearly suffer from a stiffness and lack of tonal variation, but they manage to still sound acceptable. The second and fourth movements do not. Øland plays too aggressively, her deliberate, stiff playing being joined by their even more annoying interpretive cousin, brittleness. Even when playing fast, Øland’s total lack of both grace and rhythmic flair sinks the work. But things get worse. The Mondschein sonata actually opens in promising fashion. Øland’s cold, unvarying relentlessness actually creates a suitable environment. Her unvarying playing adds a hint of creepiness. The second movement, being almost as unyielding, does much the same. Then comes the worst finale to this work I’ve ever heard. Brittle, hard, arrhythmic, metallic (including some sustained ringing at times), brittle, ugly, possessed of truly bizarre phrasing and odd accents throughout, brittle, and at times not even remotely Mondschein-like, Øland does her best to kill the piece. It is awful, awful, awful stuff. Where was the producer? Where were the A&R people? Sure, she interprets it in a unique way. Uniquely awful.

The Pastorale keeps the new streak alive. It never jells. Once again, Øland keeps some of her worst excesses under control, but new ones come to the fore. The opening movement is played too slowly, and, unusually, is not clear and rhythmic. Where’s that lovely, gentle rocking feel? It sort of meanders through it’s over 11’ length, and Øland’s playing is unfocused, with her right hand producing long passages of unattractive, almost mangled notes. It’s the strangest thing I’ve heard. (The harsh sounding recording certainly doesn’t help anything.) The Andante feels too long and has little to say. The Scherzo finds a bit more of Øland’s over deliberate playing, and is rather unattractive. The conclusion also lacks rhythmic drive and has some ugly, insistent banging in places where something more musically satisfying should be. I’ll just say that this is not a highlight of the cycle.


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quote:
Originally posted by Fredrik H:
It is alright for an old hand like you, but what if some relative naive were to come across such a Beethoven Sonata cycle like this?


I share your concerns regarding this problem. Let us just hope that the marketing people at the majors can steer newbies to something better.

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Posted on: 12 July 2005 by Todd A
The Op 31 sonatas are a proving ground for a pianist tackling this set. Done poorly, and said pianist is relegated to second class (or less) stature. Done well, and well, you know. Given Øland’s uneven and generally poor showing up through Op 28, I did not come to these works with high expectations. My expectations were largely met. The G major sonata can be so invigorating and fun and it can even be a bit on the serious side. Øland opts for a dour, deliberate and largely unpleasant approach. Her standard playing style is on display, and the opening movement is rigid and sapped of enthusiasm. The second movement includes some unpleasant trills and is otherwise notable for some disinterested and somewhat sloppy left-hand accompaniment in places. The third movement offers a return to the first movement. The Tempest is a bit better. Øland’s hard playing style actually suits the opening movement a bit, though the strong contrasts are largely flattened out. The second movement also sounds basically acceptable, at least as an alternative approach. But the finale reminds me of the Mondschein. While not quite as awful as the closer there, Øland plays with a harsh rigidity much of the time, and that’s the welcome part. She introduces some “interpretation,” which includes some unfortunate and sophomoric use of rubato and some accentuated notes and chords that should not have been accentuated. Well, at least not the way Øland does it. The final sonata of the trio offers the best recording of the bunch; it’s decided OK. Øland keeps her unpleasantries to a minimum, but still there’s not much to write positively about. Where’s the jolly mischief in the second movement? I couldn’t hear none. Oh well. Her take on these crucial reinforces the less than stellar impression I’ve garnered thus far.

The Op 49 sonatas are basically non-entities here. Øland doesn’t crush them; she doesn’t bang; she doesn’t sound leaden. Nor does she sound especially interesting or light. The delightful second movement to the second sonata is just ho-hum. Next.

Øland’s Waldstein, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, does not compare favorably to the best out there. Once again she keeps her worst excesses at bay, but even so some unfortunate playing invades this nice music. The final movement has a few passages of especially heavy, congested, and ugly playing. But all of the movements do. Truth to tell: I just finished this sonata up not ten minutes ago and most of the recording has slipped my mind, those unpleasant portions aside. That’s all I could take this evening.


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Posted on: 13 July 2005 by Todd A
Starting back up with the Op 54 finds Øland in familiar territory. She brings deliberate and harsh playing to the mix, but fortunately, this piece can and does survive. Powerful, emphatic recordings can succeed – Annie Fischer’s being a prime example – so that approach can capture my attention. Øland is no Annie, and what she hay to say isn’t very interesting. A few times she tips over into unpleasant banging, but for this cycle it’s above average.

With the Appassionata, I knew I was in for trouble by the third note. But not for the reasons I expected. For whatever reason, Øland plays in just about the opposite way from everything that cam before. She plays softly, slowly, and about as dispassionately as I can imagine. (Her overbearing deliberateness is still there.) Some of her unpleasant phrasing is still to be heard, but it’s all so easy on the ear. This more or less proves that her harsh, steely, unattractive tone is due at least in part to her general style. Some of it is attributable to the recordings, to be sure, but not as much as I thought. As soon as I was prepared to write the whole work off, she goes and plays a fine second movement. It’s somewhat touching and sounds almost beautiful at times. The finale opens with some harsh chords, but then it’s back to soft and boring. Another miss.

The Op 78 and 79 sonatas don’t fare well. Øland keeps her worst excesses at bay, but still she plays too hard and all her worst qualities shine through. Op 78 is most notable for a return of that nasty metallic ring in the upper register. (Someone needed to tune that piano.) Op 79 is most notable for a complete lack of any humor or humanity.

But they’re both better than the Les Adieux. This is one of the worst versions I’ve heard. That’s a polite way of saying it is the worst. The opening isn’t too bad, even though it lacks even a whiff of emotion. The second and third movements are awful. In both movements, Øland seems totally lost at times, and her odd emphases actually make the pieces sound almost unrecognizable. Seriously, there are some passages that sound like no other version I’ve heard. Did she use some ancient, corrupted text? Add to this Øland’s normal unpleasantries and you can imagine the pain. I do not look forward to the late sonatas. I never say that.


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Posted on: 14 July 2005 by Mr Underhill
Dear Todd,

Thank you for these thorough reviews.

Martin
Posted on: 14 July 2005 by pe-zulu
Maybe I am the only one here besides Todd who knows my compatriot Anne Ølands recording of Beethovens pianosonatas. I aquired the set two years ago, but didn´t find time to listen to it until now, prompted by Todds rewiew in this thread.

Is Øland that horrible? I am afraid, that the answer is YES. Sometimes I even find, that Todds judgement is too kind.

Ølands playing is almost all way through nervous, hectic, short articulated with lots of inadvert heavy accents, and even tecnically very imperfect, witnessed by an all too frequent occurring and distressing imprecision of fingerwork. Her left hand often lags after the right hand in fast passages, most audible when the hands play in unisono, and tremolofigures and trills are almost always unprecise. Often when she makes a rubato to be expessive, it is totally out of place, and you get instead an impression of bad tempo feeling. And the rather neutral and dry recording uncovers without mercy even the smallest inaccuracies. Øland fights just to play the notes, and consequently little attention can be given to interpretation. This is Beethoven almost without poetry. The recording is a complete mistake and should never have been made, or at least never been released. Astonishing the most succesful sonatas are nr.7, which was recorded first, and nr.29, which was recorded last, and I wonder, how she is able to solve the tecnical problems of the most difficult Hammerklaviersonate better than the rest of the cycle. But even at best she is never more than just acceptable.

I think the recordings have been made on the initiative of Øland herself. I can´t imagine the skilled and sensible manager of Classico Records asking her to record the sonatas under these circumstances. I think that most of the financial risk is Ølands. I don´t know for sure, but once when I asked the manager, why he had engaged the historically VERY uninformed danish organist Knud Vad to record Bachs complete organworks, he answered a little cryptically something like this: I should never engage him to record Bachs complete works, a project without any hope of profit, but he (Vad) is a fiery soul, who has made the preparations himself. I am just the editor.

Regards,
Posted on: 14 July 2005 by u5227470736789439
Dear Friends,

If this cycle is so monumentally aweful, how could Oland have approved its publication? What I wrote above still stands, and I wonder if the best thing that could happen (for innocent buyers) is that the various world equivalents of the UK's Pengiun Guide might at least give a candid review, so that people do not buy a set that seems calculated to damage the appreciation of some of the finiest keyboard works written. If Oland actually promoted this release, then surely it must be open to doubt that she has a fine musical judgement.

Fredrik Fiske
Posted on: 15 July 2005 by Todd A
I wasn’t looking forward to the late sonatas, and Øland more or less did what I though she would with the Op 90. It’s ugly, plain and simple. All of her standard traits can be heard. I’ve already wasted enough time on it. The 101 manages to mix the curious, utterly ineffective softness of the Appassionata and her other traits in just about perfectly misjudged amounts. To cap off a poor reading, she ends the work by banging out the notes in hideous fashion. Enough said.

The Hammerklavier is a dud. She takes the first two movements too slowly, and the opening movement is way too heavy and thick sounding. Rather than produce a quasi-orchestral sound, Øland produces a mess. Some of the passages are obviously beyond her technical capabilities, too. The Adagio becomes a vast aural wasteland under Øland’s fingers. Sapped of meaning and feeling, and infused with grotesque pauses and episodic phrasing, she kills the movement. The final movement, however, is relatively well played. Why she should succeed (or at least do better) here than in the opening movement I don’t know, but she does; it’s merely mediocre. Time for the final trio. (Gulp.)

The 109 fares slightly better. It’s dreck. Once again, Øland seems lost at times, especially in the last movement, and she resorts to her normal tricks. I had a suspicion that 110 would sound better, since it was among the first recorded. I was right. It’s not awful. Well, mostly. The opening movement has an approximation of feeling, and has some varied playing. Indeed, everything proceeds well right up until the end where she resorts to some ugly banging near the end. Almost a winner. The same can’t be said for the 111. Øland opens ugly and stays ugly throughout the entire opening movement. Harsh and brittle, she never seems to get beyond the notes to anything else. She never even seems to master the notes. The final movement manages to combine her unattractive soft playing, her hard and ugly playing, and boredom into a perfectly awful sonic mixture. Ugh.

I guess when one listens to enough cycles duds are unavoidable. This set is worse than a dud; I question whether it should have been recorded at all. Øland is barely but perceptibly better than mediocre in a handful of sonatas, but generally she is out of her depth. The other disappointment in my recent listening is Kovacevich’s set, so I guess I should compare the two. Make no mistake: Kovacevich is in an entirely different category. While he brutalizes some works, he plays others at the very highest level. Part of my disappointment came from having higher expectations. I can see value in keeping his cycle for his late sonatas. I may even be able to learn something from the sonatas I don’t care for. Øland is just plain bad. Even at the price the set is not worth considering. I’ve stated elsewhere that I would like to hear every complete cycle once. Now I’ve heard Øland’s set once. That’s more than enough.


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Posted on: 24 July 2005 by hyt
For me Anne Øland has made one of the best recordings of Beethoven sonatas, I ever heard.
On this place I it is absolutely necessary for me to recommend her Beethoven interpretation.
It is in a class of its own.
Dot.
Olar.
Posted on: 24 July 2005 by Todd A
quote:
Originally posted by hyt:
It is in a class of its own.




Well I can't dispute this statement: Her Beethoven is in a class of its own.

Would you care to explain why her Beethoven is good?
Posted on: 24 July 2005 by pe-zulu
Hyt,

About twentyfive years ago I attended a concert in Copenhagen, Anne Øland playing Beethovens fourth piano concerto. Beautiful poetic performance, especially the second movement and the solo introduction to the first movement. This is history.

Her recent LvB sonata integral is devoid of any poetry, it is tecnically unassured, rough in touch, irregular in fast passages, and almost neurotic in its incoherent and haphazard expression. Given the many more or less congenial recordings of these works available, she must be devoid of self-criticism, she falls to the ground even in a Danish context. Think of how much better Elizabeth Westenholz or John Damgaard and many others might have been.

I believe she is much more relaxed and impressive playing live, and probably an inspiring teacher, but her LvB cycle serves herself(and Beethoven) very badly.

Regards,