Top notch
The sound is fine on these tracks but then by comparison is some of the older Alfred Brendel recordings. What is more important, the interpretation and musicality is top notch.
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one of the best
Other reviewers have complained about the sound quality of these issues. I agree to some extent, but still think these are remarkable, moving performances which grow on you each time you hear them. Lewis does not exaggerate, never shows off flashily (the finale of the Appassionata sounds like Mozart), but he can carry you into Beethoven's shifting moods and visions. Great stuff.
A truly masterful interpreter of Beethoven!
Few pianists have been given the opportunity to cover the entire 32 Beethoven sonatas so early in their careers. After all, these are quintessentially works to have lived with over decades. But Paul Lewis’ performances have now become those that I want to hear in preference to all others. The interpretations of sonata after sonata reveal an artist of profound insight and imagination, able to find new things to say about works that are so familiar. As just one example of so many one could mention, hear what Lewis does with the last movement of Opus 26. So often played as a rapid-fire perpetuum mobile, but here Beethoven's tumbling phrases, and particularly the cadences which end those passages, are given an effect which can only be described as spiritually uplifting. Listening repeatedly to all three of the volumes issued so far, I can't help but think that Paul Lewis is becoming a pianist of the stature of Radu Lupu or Solomon Cutner - and I don't make those comparisons lightly.
