Beethoven Brett Dean

The first in a five-instalment series from pianist Jonathan Biss, pairing the piano concertos of Beethoven with newly commissioned concertos. Volume One pairs Beethoven’s Emperor concerto with Australian composer Brett Dean’s ‘A Winter’s Journey’.

The first in a five-instalment series from pianist Jonathan Biss, pairing the piano concertos of Beethoven with newly commissioned concertos. Volume One pairs Beethoven’s Emperor concerto with Australian composer Brett Dean’s ‘A Winter’s Journey’.

In 2015, pianist Jonathan Biss initiated the Beethoven/5 commissioning project with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and more than fifteen other orchestras, resulting in a groundbreaking collaboration over nine years. The project yielded five extraordinary new piano works by some of today’s most significant composers, responding to Beethoven’s own concerti. The first volume, recorded with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, features Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto and Brett Dean’s companion piece, “Gneixendorfer Musik, A Winter’s Journey”.

Chloë Hanslip and Danny Driver are approaching the culmination of a complete Beethoven Violin Sonata cycle where each concert is both broadcast live by the BBC on Radio 3, and recorded by Andrew Keener and Phil Rowlands for Rubicon. Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas represent the supreme challenge for a violin and piano duo, and the drama, visceral excitement and many intimate moments of these masterpieces is superbly captured in these live performances.