BEETHOVEN / BRAHMS / JANACEK

 

Perspectives 4

 

Andreas Haefliger

 

Leoš Janáček

Piano Sonata 1.X.05 From the Street (1905)

 

Ludwig Van Beethoven

Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op.53, “Waldstein” (1804)

Piano Sonata No. 24 in F sharp major, Op. 78 (1809)

 

Johannes Brahms

Piano Sonata No. 2 in F-sharp minor, Op. 2 (1854)

 

Andreas Haefliger’s concept of replicating his recital programmes on record has been a critical and commercial success. The fourth instalment in the Perspectives series juxtaposes Beethoven with works that are inspired and influenced by that composer’s great corpus of piano sonatas. The idiosyncratic Op. 78 and the celebrated Waldstein Sonata, a boundary-breaking work when it was composed in 1804, rub shoulders with Brahms’ early and impulsive Sonata No. 2. The programme provocatively opens with Janáček’s Sonata, From the Street, which, in Haefliger’s words “takes you into worlds of tragedy, metaphysical thought, a world of death, of serenity”.

 

This release preserves the vivid memories of Haefliger’s live performance of this repertoire in November 2008 at the Wigmore Hall, which The Sunday Times found by turns “searing and exquisite … immaculately realised” and “masterly”.

 

Avie AV2173