Murray Perahia & Beethoven

No. 327 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT  series of audio montages, which can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast327

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After more than a dozen Friday montages, we finally come to the end of a long thematic arc in which we will have programmed all 32 piano sonatas (some of them twice) and all six piano concertos (again, many of those twice, too).

Today’s featured artist, Murray Perahia, was at the keyboard (for the First piano concerto, along with Bernard Haitimk and the Concertgebouw orchestra) when we launched our original “Beethoven project” eight years ago, and he returns with the same orchestra and conductor this week for a performance of the Third concerto.

Beethoven did not publish all of his piano sonatas as individual opus numbers; some of these were “bundled” in sets of two or three sonatas under one opus number. In our May montage featuring Richard Goode, we shared two such bundles: his opp. 2 and 49. Today, we feature the op. 14 bundle – sonatas nos 9 and 10. The pair were dedicated to Baroness Josefa von Braun. These lesser-known early-period sonatas are less travelled but still exquisite. The F-major sonata was later arranged for string quartet by the composer in 1801.

The sonata no. 7 (along with sonatas 5 and 6) belong to the op. 10 set (Daniel Barenboim and Emil Gilels performed these sonatas in past podcasts).

I think you will love this music too.