Beethovens

32 sonatas have inspired all of the great pianists, continually inciting generations of artists to deepen their understanding of his truly unique musical language in this genre . The reasons for the desire to delve into this repertoire rich in emotions and filled with poetic eloquence are multiple: On the one hand, the sonatas span Beethovens most fertile compositional years (from 1795 to 1822) and offer a faithful representation of the composers stylistic development, the gradual expansion of his ideas, the progressive visualization of his destiny . On the other hand, they also afford us opportunity to follow the development of the instrument, which was very different than the piano as we are familiar with it today . The leather padding of the hammers gradually was replaced by felt padding, the double escapement mechanism was developed and introduced in the 1820s, and over time the strings of the lowest tones were crossed over the strings of the higher tones in order to increase their length and thus add to the sonorous force of the instrument . It is evident that Beethovens writing for the piano was also revolutionized by these modifications and improvements to the instrument . The increased sonority of the piano made it possible to amplify the dynamic range and lyric intensity and to distort the classical forms by opening the doors to Romantic pianistic techniques .

Novalis CD 150 198-2 Booklet v5.indd 13

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