Beethoven Late Sonatas

Niklas Sivelöv - a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen - is one of the leading pianists in the Nordic countries. He was born in Skellefteå in northern Sweden and began playing the organ at the age of six. When he was fourteen, he switched to the piano and studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm from the age of seventeen. He made his debut, playing Bartók's Second Piano Concerto, in 1991, and since then the conductors he has worked with include Thomas Dausgaard, Alan Gilbert, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Leif Segerstam.

Beethoven's sonatas for cello and piano span his entire creative life. Sonatas Nos.1 and 2, dating from the late 1790's, were products of his early years as a virtuoso pianist and aspiring composer in Vienna. Sonata No.3 dates from the composer's middle period and is contemporary with his fourth and firth symphonies. Sonatas Nos.4 and 5 were composed at the beginning of Beethoven's visionary late period and rub shoulders with his last violin sonata. These authoritative performances from cellist Ralph Kirschbaum and pianist Shai Wosner were recorded immediately after concluding of a tour of all five sonatas and the variations across the USA and the UK.

This extraordinary pianist studied the piano at the Moscow Conservatory with Emil Gilels and Yakov Zak…