The brilliant Imogen Cooper, among the finest English pianists, plays a compelling programme of Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas.The first, Op.109 in E major, is marked “Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung” (songfully, with utmost feeling), while Op.111, his last sonata, distils a whole orchestra into the piano’s 88 keys, stretching both technique and imagination.The journey ends with Beethoven’s Op.110, song-like and cathartic, described by Vincent d’Indy as “an exertion of will to banish suffering” – the perfect conclusion to this unmissable recital.
