BEETHOVEN

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major

Piano Sonata No. 14 No. 2 ('Moonlight')

Piano Sonata No. 31

Dejan Lazic

Australian Chamber Orchestra; Richard Tognetti, leader

The follow-up to Dejan Lazic’s impressive, if controversial, arrangement for piano of Brahm’s Violin Concerto, and a string of critically lauded ‘Liasons’ discs.

"Lazic's profound understanding of Brahms makes this disc a startling success." Rob Cowan – Gramophone

"Dejan Lazic is a composer himself, and he embraces this repertoire as if from inside" Classic FM Magazine

One of the most challenging of the younger generation of pianists, Lazic’s performances always have something fresh and relevant to say, whilst being a tour de force of technical excellence.

In his liner notes Dejan tells us about the rediscovery of Beethovens arrangement, about improvising cadenzas and links between the Concerto and Sonatas on this disc: - ‘we followed many paths and took many risks, all to the benefit of the music and Beethoven's score. In purely musical terms, this 'outcome', with the Australian Chamber Orchestra directed by Richard Tognetti, is a mixed form or combination, in which the well-known version for piano and (symphony) orchestra, performed as usual with a conductor, is brought together with the newly discovered chamber version for piano and string quintet. ... In Beethoven's time it was customary that the soloist, who was often a composer as well, improvised the cadenzas. Beethoven personally challenged the young Franz Liszt not only to compose more, but also generally to improvise more at the cadenzas. I have therefore taken the liberty of writing my own cadenzas for the first and last movements. ... In both sonatas, Beethoven writes the menuetto/scherzo as second movement, instead of as third as was customary.

Generally speaking, the term romantic irony links the two sonatas to the piano concerto. Around 1800, Friedrich Schlegel had already formulated his concept of romantic irony, and Ludwig van Tieck employed it slightly later in his literary comedies.

Channel Classics CCSSA30511