Maurizio Pollini (piano)

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106 'Hammerklavier'

In 2022, one of the greatest pianists of our time, Maurizio Pollini, celebrated his 80th birthday. After Pollini already recorded Beethoven's sonatas Nos. 28 and 29 back in 1977, he does so again in 2022 in order to elicit the last secrets from these late sonatas in a new interpretation. Herewith he completes the late sonatas, after the release of the successful 2020 album 'Beethoven - The Last Sonatas'. Like all of Beethoven's late sonatas, these defied the formal conventions common to the genre and were thus ahead of their time. Beethoven no longer cared about constraints in society and music, instead giving free rein to his subjective feelings. Possibly it was precisely this flow of true emotions characterized his late sonatas - especially his Piano Sonata in A major op. 101 is characterized by ruptures and radical changes, and celebrates life at the end, full of wit and joie de vivre, human and transcendent.