Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Rémi Geniet

• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Piano Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 2/2:
• 1I. Allegro vivace07:09
• 2II. Largo appassionato08:17
• 3III. Scherzo. Allegretto03:39
• 4IV. Rondo. Grazioso06:39
• Piano Sonata No. 9 in E Major, Op. 14/1:
• 5I. Allegro06:22
• 6II. Allegretto03:38
• 7III. Rondo. Allegro comodo03:25
• Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27/2:
• 8I. Adagio sostenuto05:32
• 9II. Allegretto02:41
• 10III. Presto agitato07:09
• Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-Flat Major, Op. 110:
• 11I. Moderato cantabile molto espressivo06:41
• 12II. Scherzo. Allegro molto02:22
• 13III. Adagio ma non troppo - Fuga. Allegro ma non troppo11:57
• Total Runtime01:15:31

Info for Beethoven: Piano Sonatas

With this programme of four sonatas, the young pianist Rémi Géniet presents a highly judicious selection that enables listeners to enter the exceptional world of Beethoven’s thirty-two piano sonatas, which Hans von Bülow described as the ‘New Testament’ for pianists, the ‘Old Testament’ being Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavie.

The choice of these four works offers a very representative sample of the solutions Beethoven brought to the question of the piano sonata. is genre, characteristic of the so-called ‘Classical’ style, was in gestation at the time of his musical training in the last third of the eighteenth century (Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770): among his first compositions were three sonatas which he dedicated in 1782-83 to the sovereign whose subject he was, namely Archbishop Maximilian Friedrich, Elector of Cologne (that is, one of the seven German princes possessing the privilege of electing the Holy Roman Emperor); he hoped thereby to attract his attention and solicit his protection and patronage. It was only ten years later, at the end of 1792, that the new Elector (since 1784), Archduke Maximilian Franz Xavier of Austria, brother of the Emperor Joseph II, agreed to send Beethoven, by that time a musician in his Kapelle, to complete his studies in Vienna by taking composition lessons with Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). Haydn was then the great ‘Classical’ composer, the father of the string quartet, the master of the recently created genres of the sonata and the symphony, and a close friend of Mozart, who had just died (5 December 1791). …

Rémi Geniet, piano

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