Composers: Beethoven
Compositions: Piano Sonatas, Opp. 109, 110 and 111
Performers: Maurizio Pollini p
Catalogue Number: DG 4838250

Maurizio Pollini’s accounts of the glorious triptych of Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas are rightly legendary: a miraculous melding of power, intellectuality and sheer beauty, to name but three elements, without the sometimes cold, crystalline perfection of Michelangeli. In his latest recording of the three, the E Flat Sonata (Opus 109) is played to emphasise its rhapsodic spirit and he makes the brief second movement resemble a sort of Tarantella (although sounding nothing like Rossini). What fascinated me especially was his quizzical approach to the final theme...