BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas 'Waldstein', 'Appassionata', 'Les Adieux'

Olga Pashchenko

Fine violins often improve with age. Pianos, on the other hand, as intricate machines with many moving parts, inevitably deteriorate....

Reviewed by Patrick Rucker in issue: 10/2017

Mary Bevan: Voyages

Joseph Middleton | Mary Bevan

Baudelaire’s ‘L’invitation au voyage’ and Goethe’s ‘Kennst du das Land’ are the starting points for Mary Bevan and Joseph Middleton’s...

Reviewed by Tim Ashley in issue: 01/2018

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas Opp 14, 22, 26, 27, 28 & 49

Paavali Jumppanen

Paavali Jumppanen’s latest double-CD release proves the most consistently engaging so far in his Beethoven sonata cycle. The rhythmically astute...

Reviewed by Jed Distler in issue: 12/2015

BEETHOVEN Piano Concertos Nos 4 & '6' (Gianluca Cascioli)

Gianluca Cascioli | Resonanz Ensemble | Riccardo Minasi

Harmonia Mundi, which celebrated Beethoven’s semiquincentenary with original-instrument performances of the five canonic concertos and Choral Fantasy with Kristian Bezuidenhout...

Reviewed by Patrick Rucker in issue: 12/2021

BEETHOVEN Violin Sonatas Op 30 (Christian Tetzlaff)

Christian Tetzlaff | Lars Vogt

‘How greatly you wrong me’: it’s extraordinary to think that Beethoven completed his Op 30 so soon before the anguished...

Reviewed by Richard Bratby in issue: 12/2021

'Beethoven for Three' Symphonies Nos 2 & 5

Emanuel Ax | Leonidas Kavakos | Yo-Yo Ma

Ferdinand Ries’s arrangement for piano trio of Beethoven’s Second Symphony was published in 1805, a year after the publication of...

Reviewed by Andrew Farach-Colton in issue: 03/2022

BEETHOVEN Piano Concertos Nos 5 & 0 (Boris Giltburg)

Boris Giltburg | Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra | Vasily Petrenko

I first heard Boris Giltburg shortly after his victory in 2013 at the Queen Elisabeth Competition, when Marin Alsop, who...

Reviewed by Patrick Rucker in issue: 05/2022

BEETHOVEN Leonore (Jacobs)

Dimitry Ivashchenko | Florian Feth | Freiburg Baroque Orchestra | Johannes Chum | Johannes Weisser | Julian Popken | Marlis Petersen | Maximilian Schmitt | René Jacobs | Robin Johannsen

We recall that Fidelio was first given as Leonore – in Vienna in November 1805, in three acts – before...

Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 02/2020

BEETHOVEN Complete Piano Sonatas (Fazil Say)

In the booklet notes accompanying Fazıl Say’s Beethoven sonata cycle, the pianist writes: ‘As I work I make annotations above...

Reviewed by Jed Distler in issue: 03/2020

Beethoven for Three: Symphony No 6 'Pastorale'

Emanuel Ax | Leonidas Kavakos | Yo-Yo Ma

I was bowled over by Kavakos, Ma and Ax’s recent recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as arranged by Colin Matthews...

Reviewed by Andrew Farach-Colton in issue: 12/2022