Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas

Marking Beethoven’s 250th birthday in a suitably heroic fashion, Fazil Say has recorded all 32 of the composer’s piano sonatas. He sees the sonatas as ‘a sacred text for musicians’ and Beethoven as ‘a revolutionary composer starting to create music 50 to 100 years ahead of its time,’ adding that: ‘When we interpret a composer’s work, we need to remain faithful to it. In other words, we need to feel like a composer. Compositions should be interpreted with the same freshness as a completely new piece of music that has just been created.’