Robert Silverman Re-Visits the 32 Beethoven Sonatas in the 10/11 Season

After more than a decade, Robert Silverman, one of Canada's best-known pianists, is performing all 32 of Beethoven's piano sonatas during the 10/11 season, in Vancouver and San Jose, California. In 1999, "Bob" as he's known to his friends, performed the eight-concert series, rotating performances between Seattle, Toronto, Winnipeg, Washington DC, and Vancouver. This also made for a Juno nominated ten-disc recording, which received widespread critical acclaim and brisk sales. Is Silverman insane for re-visiting such a mammoth project? There are many good reasons - professional, artistic, and commercial - why so few pianists have recorded the 32 Beethoven sonatas more than once. He explains, "When Michael Silver of Audio High invited me to perform and re-record the complete cycle at Le Petit Trianon in San Jose, and a week later, David Pay of Vancouver's Music on Main, Vancouver's most edgy concert presenter - asked me to perform them for his organization, the decision to accept both invitations was made neither lightly nor easily." Ultimately, though, Robert's strong reaction to the music itself compelled him to do it: "This was the musical journey of my life. No project I had ever undertaken had been so exhilarating. My brain was flooded with insights how Beethoven's mind worked, how his music is put together, and how his magnificent, multi-faceted thoughts might be transmogrified from notes on a page into a rich, coherent sonic image. And now, I find I have other things to say about the sonatas. Not better necessarily (although I sure hope so), certainly not worse, but definitely different." Of the few pianists who have recorded the Beethoven sonatas twice or more, Robert Silverman joins the ranks of Brendel, Arrau, Kempff, and Barenboim.

Silverman recently began the current cycle on September 9 at Le Petit Trianon Theatre in San Jose, and will alternate between that venue and Vancouver's "Music on Main" series at The Jazz Cellar through the spring of 2012. To track Bob's informative, lively dialogue on the process, please visit http://beethovenodyssey.blogspot.com/.  

At the age of 72, Robert Silverman's pace is unrelentless, to say the least. He has been appointed Artist-in-Residence at McGill's Schulich School of Music for 2010/11 (commuting from Vancouver) and he will give a solo recital at Schulich on January 11, along with lecture-recitals on Schumann and Beethoven. He will also release a new 8-disc box set of all 18 Mozart sonatas in October on the Isomike label. Editing also continues on a recent Brahms/Schumann recording for Stereophile, consisting of the Handel Variations and Symphonic Etudes, respectively. Coming up on November 29, Bob will give a recital in Vancouver to celebrate the re-dedication of the Norman Rothstein Theater at the Jewish Community Centre.

Active on Facebook, Silverman enjoys an enormous following on the internet, where a generous selection of his recordings is accessible on YouTube and iLike.

For more information on the Beethoven cycle, please visit www.robertsilverman.ca. For concert venue information, please visit www.musiconmain.ca and www.audiohigh.org/upcoming-events.  

Sponsors for the Le Petit Trianon concerts: Audio High, Meridian Audio, and the Elf Foundation.

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