From the early Op. 2 set of sonatas to the famous 'Moonlight', find out why Beethoven's piano sonatas broke the mould - and hear from pianists themselves about how they approach performing them.

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas – No 7, Op 10 No 3; No 8, ‘Pathétique’, Op 13; No 12, ‘Marche funèbre’, Op 26. Rondo, Op 51 No 1 (Gianluca Cascioli) Michelle Assay Friday, March 8, 2024 He’s the Peter ...

In the late 18th century it was customary to publish works in multiples of three and Beethoven typically worked on the triptych of his Op. 10 simultaneously between about 1796 and 1798. No. 3 is ...

Beethoven is known for crossing all sorts of musical boundaries, and the opening to his "Kreutzer" Sonata for Violin and Piano is a brilliant example. Beethoven himself said that the sonata is written ...

Beethoven's second compositional phase, often known as his heroic period, is most obviously exemplified in the Eroica Symphony of 1803-4. But, as the slow movement of his Op. 26 Piano Sonata shows, ...

The popular nickname of the 'Moonlight' for the second sonata of Op. 27 may be a fair title for the first movement, but the rest of the work contains some of the most turbulent music Beethoven ever ...

Beethoven took Countess Giulietta Guicciardi on as a pupil in around 1801 and soon fell in love with her. His Sonata Op. 27 no. 2, 'Moonlight Sonata' is dedicated to her... Sonata Op. 27 no. 2 was ...

Fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout (bih-ZAY-den-hoat) joins Fred Child in NPR's Studio 4A. Bezuidenhout is a 24-year-old pianist from South Africa who plays both fortepiano and modern piano. When he's ...

Maurice Ravel famously said of his own Sonata for violin and piano that both instruments are “essentially incompatible”. But when German violinist Isabelle Faust and Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov ...