Search - Beethoven, Stephen Kovacevich :: Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Op. 27/2, "Moonlight," Opp. 26, 27/1, & 49

This disc of Beethoven Piano Sonatas is the seventh in Stephen Kovacevich's accumulating cycle, and it stakes his claim ever more forcefully to be our leading Beethovenian. Moreover, the current five works (Nos. 12, 13, 14, 19, and 20) make a fascinating group, even if the latter two are modest exceptions in Beethoven's colossal sonata oeuvre. Kovacevich--who has made his home in London ever since his lessons with Myra Hess in 1959--has always been a man for the slow burn rather than the flashy burst, and his patient keyboard craftsmanship is yielding wondrous results. The unassuming little Sonatas 19 and 20 blossom under his fingers, while the magisterial earlier trio--which really do hang together like different facets of the same vast concept--emerge in all their quirkily passionate splendor. Kovacevich opens Op. 26--Chopin's favorite, with its programmatic dead march--with the feeling of great power held in reserve. Its scherzo is spring-heeled, and its final movement has a marvelous sense of release. The oft-maligned Op. 27 No. 1 is imbued with spacious grace, and the sonata that Beethoven himself never knew as "Moonlight" comes to an appropriately volcanic conclusion. --Michael Church