Album Notes

The discs in this collection offer to the listener the piano music that Beethoven composed in his final years as well as the two cello sonatas op. 102. Some are simple in style; others, of remarkable complexity. Yet, in my opinion, as products of Beethoven's "late style", they possess certain traits in common which I will attempt to underscore in the discussions to follow. Since these piano works were written not only during the same period, but often at the same time as other great compositions of the "late style", notably the Missa Solemnis, it will be interesting to observe the number of ways in which all the late music, both piano and instrumental, bears the imprint of Beethoven's final drive to bend and transform existing forms, to chart new pathways, styles and genres.