During the past few years, ECM has released, CD by CD, Andras Schiff's extraordinary performances of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas.
Recorded live, in Zurich's Tonhalle, they represent what the pianist has described as a "stupendous journey," through music that's the equivalent of a vast mountain range, like the Himalayas.
ECM has now made these recordings available as a handsome nine volume set, including a bonus disc, Encores after Beethoven, that is also available separately.
After Schiff's highly individual interpretations of familiar Beethoven, including a particularly mist-laden Moonlight Sonata, his choice of encores is far from arbitrary. The pianist's eloquent booklet essay reflects on the psychology of performance and audience, including a plea for us to remember that musicians are not machines or jukeboxes.
This is no collection of conciliatory bonbons. All 11 tracks had been planned to extend the music that preceded them, as when Beethoven's popular Andante favori, the original slow movement of the Waldstein Sonata, followed the playing of that work.
