András Schiff

continued

Yes, that's right. Ursula Oppens tried it back in 1997. The idea was that she'd juxtapose Beethoven's sonatas with works by contemporary American composers — hence the series title Beethoven the Contemporary. It didn't work out. Her first concert was nearly a disaster — Oppens even lost her place a couple of times — and her second was only better in that it wasn't as bad. And that was the last of Beethoven the Contemporary.

Now, ten years later, meet Beethoven the Classic. This time around there's no filler — just thirty-two of the greatest piano sonatas ever written performed in eight concerts over three seasons by one of the finest pianists of his generation, András Schiff. On recordings, the fifty-four-year-old Hungarian has already worked his way through the complete sonatas of Mozart and Schubert, along with nearly all the solo keyboard works of Bach, but he saved Beethoven for his maturity.

It wasn't because Schiff didn't have the chops before — check out his 1986 Goldberg Variations. Anything you want — digital independence, textural clarity, technical fluency — he's got. It wasn't because Schiff didn't have the brains — check out his 1995 Reger-Brahms-Handel disc. Anybody who can make Reger sound so lucid and so luminous has got brains to spare. It wasn't because Schiff didn't have the heart — check out any of his early-1990s Schubert discs. Schiff's deep under the skin of the most poetic of composers. And it sure wasn't because he didn't have the soul — check out virtually every disc he's ever made.