For this solo piano performance, Gilles Vonsattel plays three Beethoven sonatas, including the early, groundbreaking Op. 7, whose score fittingly features the words Grande sonate on its title page; the Op. 90, a tender, two-movement precursor to Beethoven’s late-style works that may or may not have been inspired by the romantic struggles of the work’s dedicatee, Count Moritz von Lichnowsky; and the actual first piano sonata of Beethoven’s late period: the intimate yet masterful Op. 101, which Beethoven described as “a series of impressions and reveries.”
BEETHOVEN Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 7
BEETHOVEN Sonata in E Minor, Op. 90
BEETHOVEN Sonata in A Major, Op. 101
Approximate length: 1 hour and 10 minutes