Robert Levin, John Eliot Gardiner - Beethoven: Piano concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

Robert Levin’s recordings of the Beethoven concertos with Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionaire et Romantique brought us yet another step closer to hearing this music as Beethoven imagined it. Five different contemporaneous fortepianos (or copies) are used, which Levin plays with great authority. While their sound is considerably lighter and drier than that of a modern concert grand, they are capable of producing a wide range of dynamics, and their action allows for dazzlingly clean articulation of scales and passage work. Levin, one of the few fortepianists with a real virtuoso technique, takes full advantage. These are bold, exciting performances, and they are dashingly – if at times a bit aggressively – partnered by Gardiner and his period-instrument band. The recordings are full-bodied, fairly well balanced, and admirably detailed. -- Ted Libbey