Beethoven
The Final Masterworks
Andrew Rangell
The last five piano sonatas, the Diabelli Variations and the Bagatelles, Op. 126 represent Beethoven at the summit of his mastery in each of these forms.
“This recording [Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations] can stand with the finest ever made; it is a major achievement of musical understanding (and of questioning) and a staggering display of imaginative keyboard colorations.”
Boston Globe
“Beethoven sonatas 28 and especially 29 (“Hammerklavier”) are immense in their emotional range and technical challenges. Andrew Rangell possesses the intelligence and dexterity to reckon nobly with these humbling conceptions.”
TIME Magazine
About the Artist
One of our most eloquent and probing interpreters of the major keyboard works of Bach and Beethoven, pianist Andrew Rangell is also acclaimed for a wide variety of recordings, which range from the music of Sweelinck, Farnaby, and Gibbons to Nielsen, Ives, Enescu, Bartók, Janáček, Schoenberg, Christian Wolff, and many others. Mr. Rangell’s Bach recordings embrace the Goldberg Variations, the Partitas, the French suites, the Art of Fugue, the Well-tempered Clavier (Bk. 1), the B minor French Overture, Italian Concerto, and smaller works.
Rangell made his New York debut as winner of the Malraux Award of the Concert Artists’ Guild, and has since performed and lectured throughout the United States, and in Europe, Israel, and China. He has also taught on the faculties of Dartmouth, Middlebury, and Tufts University. In the 1980s, already recognized as a distinctive recitalist and collaborative artist, Mr. Rangell gained national attention — and the award of an Avery Fisher Career Grant — for his vivid traversals of the complete Beethoven sonata–cycle in New York, Boston, Cleveland, Rochester, Denver, and other US cities. A hand injury sustained in 1991 forced Mr. Rangell to gradually alter the trajectory of his career, and eventually to place his highest priority on recording. In recent years he has created several DVDs for children — integrating his special talents as author, illustrator, narrator, and pianist.
About Steinway & Sons label
The STEINWAY & SONS music label produces exceptional albums of solo piano music across all genres. The label — a division of STEINWAY & SONS, maker of the world’s finest pianos — is a perfect vessel for producing the finest quality recordings by some of the most talented pianists in the world.