It is well documented that Beethoven was very interested in pianos, much more so than Haydn, Mozart or Schubert, and had strong preferences and dislikes in regard to type of piano and particular maker. Beethoven’s first 16 piano sonatas were written for a five-octave instrument, and he is known to have preferred the fortepianos of Anton Walter over those of other makers.

These earlier instruments can suggest very different gestures from those proffered by the modern piano, and can lead the player down quite different paths of expression. This recording provides a wonderful illustration of this fact, featuring four sonatas from different periods in Beethoven’s career on four different period instruments.

Malcolm Bilson has devoted the past quarter-century to the study and performance of late 18th and early 19th century Viennese keyboard literature on pianos of the period, both copies and originals. He has recorded all the Mozart Piano Concertos with John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists, the Mozart Piano-Violin Sonatas with Sergiu Luca and the Beethoven Piano-Cello Sonatas with Anner Bylsma; all the Mozart Piano Sonatas and he is currently recording the complete sonatas of Schubert.

In September 1994 Malcolm Bilson, together with six other outstanding musicians, performed a concert series in Utrecht as well as in New York featuring Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas on period instruments. A recording of this immense project was released by Claves Records in 1997 (Claves CD 50-9707/10, 10 CDs) and was greeted by prompt and overwhelming international acclaim.

This recording features four sonatas from the Beethoven edition.