Tender Warmth Beethoven cello sonatas - heard by ROBERT ANDERSON 'Starker's interpretation suggests he has not quite grasped the magnitude of his responsibility.'

On this recording of more than thirty years back it is, perhaps surprisingly, the three sets of variations that fare best, and particularly the pair on themes from Beethoven's favourite Magic Flute. Both tunes, 'Bei Männern' and 'Ein Mädchen', involve Papageno, and Beethoven can afford to be playful, rather more so than in the comparatively portentous Handelian 'See the conqu'ring hero'. There is some heartbreak, too, because Pamina is also involved in the first set, and poor Papageno considers he gets a very rough deal throughout at the hands of Sarastro.In the sonatas Starker is never less than neat and competent, but he has too little in reserve to express the more eloquent of Beethoven's phrases, and cannot quite withstand the full power of Buchbinder's keyboard, which bears little relation, after all, to Beethoven's...

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

WARNER CLASSICS

CELLO MUSIC

PIANO MUSIC