Recordings
Below is a list of available recordings by Williem Ibes. All CDs can be purchased at the College of St. Benedict / St. John's University Bookstores.
Beethoven's Jesus 2015 DVD
Beethoven acknowledges two men as his
role models, Socrates and Jesus.
The three works in this album honor the
latter, Jesus of Nazareth.
DVD Contents
Ludwig van
Beethoven (1770-1827)
Opus 106 Hammerklavier sonata III in F
sharp Minor
Opus 110 in A flat Major
Opus 135 in D flat Major arranged for
piano duet
Buy Now:
Beethoven's Jesus
Beethoven acknowledges two men as his
role models, Socrates and Jesus.
The three works in this album honor the
latter, Jesus of Nazareth.
DVD Contents
Ludwig van
Beethoven (1770-1827)
Opus 106 Hammerklavier sonata III in F
sharp Minor
Opus 110 in A flat Major
Opus 135 in D flat Major arranged for
piano duet
Buy Now: Beethoven's Jesus
Chopin: The Complete Nocturnes (2012)
Alban Berg sonata for
piano
Sonata in B Minor
Twenty five years ago I made my first
professional recording, the Complete
Nocturnes by Chopin. A few years
ago I felt the urge to do it again. I was
hard put hard to grasp the urge myself, but as I
listen to the proofs of my latest CD, I can
identify some of my reasoning - reasoning, as
Pascal noted, of the heart, not the mind.
Buy now: Chopin: The Complete Nocturnes
Claude Debussy/ Gabriel Fauré (2010)
When in the autumn of 1952 I walked up the Champs Elysées and descended the Avenue de la Grande Armée to have a first meeting with Marguerite Long, I knew French composers almost solely by name and, after my first lesson with Mme Long a few weeks later, I had to realize - as my teacher did - that I was a hopeless case. Bach, Brahms, Beethoven yes, Fauré and Debussy, never.
Read more and listen to excerpts
Buy now: Claude Debussy/ Gabriel Fauré
"A Beethoven Triptych" (2006)
This
CD and the research that forms its foundation
was twelve years in the making. The movie I saw in 1994, "Immortal Beloved,"
spurred me on to address once again (how many
accounts had I read already!) the question of
the Immortal Beloved's identity. Who could that woman have been to whom
Beethoven addressed (in very sloppy handwriting,
written with "her" pencil!) the
ten-page letter, found, after the composer's
death, in a secret drawer of his desk, which
contained those tantalizing words: "unsterbliche
Geliebte," "immortal Beloved"?
Beethoven: Sonata Opus 101 "Immortal Beloved" (1998)
This
CD features a first attempt to translate my
discoveries concerning the Immortal Beloved in
sound. The booklet details how I arrived at my
understanding of her identity and how the name
"Dorothea" permeates the work from beginning to
end. In fact, the whole sonata develops
seamlessly out of the motif contained in the
first two measures. I have had to make an Herculean effort to not
fall victim to "
the romantic virus" and some of that effort
shows; but at least the "silences of
articulation" are in their proper place (mostly)
so that Beethoven's great love-paean becomes
intelligible.I prefer my later recording of the work (in "
A Beethoven
Triptych") but there is in this present
album the undeniable excitement of a first
love-affair.
Willem Ibes, pianist (1996)
Liszt's B minor piano sonata is by general consensus one of the greatest works written for the instrument. In the sonata principle of two contrasting thematic environments Liszt finds the ideal vehicle for conveying the eternal struggle between the two poles of our earthly existence, Good and Evil, Hubris and Piety, Death and Resurrection.
Read more and listen to excerpts
Buy now: Willem Ibes, pianist
Willem Ibes plays Franz Liszt (1994)
|
Read more and listen to excerpts Buy Now: Willem Ibes plays Franz Liszt |
UNESCO Recital (1990)
In the fall of 1990 I was invited to give an address, to an overflow crowd, in the Grande Salle of the Unesco in Paris for the opening of the first International Congress on Haptonomy, to be followed by a piano recital. The address was entitled, "La Musique: Plénitude du Présent" (Music: the Fullness of the Present). The recital which took place that same evening is represented on this disc.
Read more and listen to excerpts
Buy Now: Willem Ibes, UNESCO Recital
