Anne Queffélec is an artist whom I’ve loved in Scarlatti, Bach and Ravel, but Beethoven? This is new territory, certainly in the studio (and indeed her only previous recording of the composer is the Triple Concerto). She recorded the last three sonatas aged 74 in February last year. And while an artist in less technically good shape might have shown some signs of struggle, here you have the sense that she has been pondering these pieces for decades – and they emerge as personal and deeply considered. In her booklet note, she modestly avoids her own analysis ‘which is beyond my competence as a performer’, instead drawing on writers from Julien Green to Milan Kundera, ‘whose words eloquently express the amazement and wonder I myself feel before Beethoven’.

That amazement and wonder have been distilled into performances that are grounded, personal and full of imagination. That’s evident from the off – the opening movement of Op 109 has just the right mix of lyricism and rubato. For those listeners demanding a more strictly Classical approach even in these late sonatas, her freedom might sometimes seem excessive, but it convinces me. There’s a real impetus to the Prestissimo, which avoids ever sounding aggressive, its lyrical moments highly refined. At the sonata’s heart is the variation-form finale, and Queffélec imbues the theme with the perfect mix of song and nobility. Highlights include a playful second variation (its Leggieramente instruction beautifully conveyed – you can tell she’s a great Scarlattian), a third with real panache, while her slowing from here to the fourth is completely innate. As the fugal Var 5 bustles in she brings out both its urgency and its pomposity. And the sixth, with its piquant trilling and ever-fuller textures, has a glow to it, rendering the reprise of the movement’s opening theme quietly profound.

In Op 110 I wonder if she lingers slightly too long at the top of the opening phrase just before the trill (Paul Lewis doesn’t and I find this more natural). However, as in Op 109 there’s a sureness of approach that makes her the most scintillating of tour guides. She’s alive to the movement’s harmonic darkenings and there’s a freedom that sounds almost improvisatory. I’ve grown attached to an Allegro molto that is truly driven, and to my taste – but it is just that – Queffélec is short on fire here: Lewis is strikingly sprung, Steven Osborne grittier still, while Richard Goode is daringly fast. Her Adagio, though, is full of a quiet anguish, the crunching harmonies driving the music forwards (though Osborne is still more blatantly searing). As the finale’s fugue builds from unobtrusive to cataclysmic there’s an absolute focus to Queffélec’s playing, while the exultation of the final bars is brilliantly dispatched.

Whereas some artists seem to take time – fatally – to find the mood (and rhythm) of the Maestoso opening of Op 111, Queffélec nails it, leading unerringly to an Allegro full of urgency and the required appassionato, the pianist in full command of the music’s emotional ebb and flow. As with the finale of Op 109, she picks just the right tempo for the Arietta, eschewing the extremes that some pianists find, drawing you into the variations with her powers of narration. Some find more anarchy to the jazzy writing (from 6'50") but her leggiero upward scales are breathtakingly transparent, her command of the extremes of registers balancing weightlessness with rich sonorities (and the piano is in excellent shape). Queffélec’s artistry comes fully to the fore as the texture thins, the simplicity of Beethoven’s farewell to the sonata – so difficult to achieve – profoundly effective here.