Daniel Barenboim returns with a completely new recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas and Diabelli Variations recorded live in Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin during this year’s lockdown. For this recording, his 5th complete cycle of all 32 sonatas.
“Barenboim’s Beethoven is uncompromising and filled with hidden depths, contrapuntally stirring, Few musicians have engaged with Beethoven’s music as intensively and over such a long period as the pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim. For this recording, his fifth complete cycle of all thirty-two sonatas, Barenboim has reimmersed himself in the scores of these sonatas, while building on all of his past experiences. With his typical inquisitiveness and obstinacy he has – in his own words – tried to interpret everything “with virginal freshness and to start again from scratch”. Barenboim has always regarded Beethoven as one of the most important, if not the most important, of all the composers in his life. Barenboim’s continuous preoccupation with Beethoven is also reflected in his new recording of the composer’s last great work for the piano, the Diabelli Variations op. 120.
Featuring 2 bonus CDs with sonatas recorded by Daniel Barenboim in 1958/59 for the Westminster Label.