Beethoven Piano Sonatas Complete

The final volume of pianist Paavali Jumppanen’s acclaimed cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas. This volume combines the early Op. 7 and the famous Pathétique sonata together with the Last Sonatas Opp. 109-111 written by Beethoven in the 1820s. Jumppanen has collaborated with numerous contemporary composers and premiering many solo and chamber works for the piano.

French Canada's ATMA Classique label tends to favor Canadian artists and specifically those from Québec, but the only connection between Canada and young Italian pianist Christian Leotta is apparently that he appeared in 2002 and perhaps – this is not made clear in the booklet – that he began playing the complete cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas in that city. He's certainly among the youngest performers to have attempted that feat, and perhaps that mark of ambition is what attracted the label to the project.

Le pianiste italien Christian Leotta nous revient avec le volume 3 de son intégrale des 32 sonates pour piano de Beethoven. Il a fait de ce corpus une spécialité. Ce CD double contient notamment les sonates pour piano No. 17 en ré mineur op. 31 No. 2 “ La Tempête” et la No. 31 en la bémol majeur op. 110, ainsi que quelques sonates des premiers opus.

Hungarian pianist Annie Fischer made her debut at the age of 10 and studied with Ernst von Dohnányi at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Her performance of the Liszt Sonata in B minor won Fischer first prize at the 1933 Liszt International Piano Competition, but her concert career was barely underway when war broke out; Fischer fled to Sweden. Afterwards Fischer returned to Hungary, and although she made her New York debut in 1961, she was only seldom seen in the United States and based her career in continental Europe.

To run parallel with his complete Haydn series, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is now starting a complete, chronological cycle of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. This first set covers the sonatas composed in the 1790s. Two further volumes, of middle and late sonatas, will follow in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

10 CD box set celebrating the work of the German Beethoven-pianist of international renown, Wilhelm Backhaus. It contains all of his concert recordings, the most popular sonatas and waltz-variations.

Beethoven's early sonatas were highly influenced by those of Haydn and Mozart. The first three sonatas, written in 1782-3 are usually not acknowledged as part of the complete set of piano sonatas, due to the fact that he was 13 when they were published. His Piano Sonatas No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 11, 12, 13, and 15 are four movements long, which was rather uncommon in his time.

This is the first in a nine-disc series of Beethoven’s complete Piano Sonatas that Jonathan Biss plans to record over as many years. That does seem excessively leisurely, however great a testimony it is to Biss’s seriousness and dedication.