While a number of Beethoven's piano sonatas have titles (authentic or otherwise), Op. 81a is the only one to have a concrete extra-musical inspiration: the flight from Vienna of his patron the ...

Much of this success was due to a disregard of composition conventions and rules, pushing the performers and their instruments to their limits. Today there are many artists who have recorded and ...

This year, of course, has been unlike any other. In considering an Artist of the Year, it is inevitable that we look beyond a contribution to the range of excellence on record, although Igor Levit’s ...