Claves Record

Cédric Pescia: Beethoven's last three piano sonatas

Similarly to the challenge of the Goldberg Variations (CD 50-2407) which marked his debut with Claves in 2004, Cédric Pescia has launched into Beethoven's last three sonatas for 2009. He has been talking about it for a long time and now he is ready. Ready to tackle music of which absolutely everything has been said, music that is at the same time puzzling and full of sunny simplicity: three sonatas written between 1820 and 1822, while Beethoven was working on the Missa Solemnis, his "spiritual testament". This coexistence has raised all sorts of wild comments. Richard Wagner for instance puts forth a most unusual theory – coming from him – to explain why the final opus 111 has only two movements: "The first movement corresponds to desire in all its suffering and heroicism; the second corresponds to satisfied desire, as man will experience it once he has become reasonable, vegetarian." Far from this, Cédric Pescia, one of the most touching pianists of his generation, gives us a heart-moving, sensitive rendition of the deepest interiority.