Beethoven: Piano Sonatas – Murray Perahia

   in Piano International (May, 2018)
Le Hammerklavier is a challenge that Murray Perahia confesses he deliberately delayed tackling in order to devote to it the appropriate degree of attention. Or, rather, a series of challenges: intellectual due to the complexity of the concluding fugue; emotional, in the enormous slow third movement – music of profound sadness; and physical in that most performances leave little change from 45 minutes.

The result of Perahia’s study is utterly compelling. Tempi are fast throughout: overall Perahia takes 41 minutes, shaving almost three minutes off Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (Chandos), nearly five swifter than Paul Lewis in his till-now peerless (amongst modern accounts) interpretation on Harmonia Mundi.

The impetus caught me by surprise …