As always, Paul Lewis offers playing of rare insight and intelligence. He is just as much at home in the dazzling brilliance of the C major Sonata, Op. 2 No. 3...as in the graceful lyricism of the concluding rondo from Op. 7

Paul Lewis's third volume of his Beethoven sonata cycle once more shows him playing down all possible roughness and angularity in favour of a richly humane and predominantly lyrical beauty. Again, here is nothing of that glossy, impersonal sheen beloved of too many young pianists, but a subtly nuanced perception beneath an immaculate surface.
His technique, honed on many ultra-demanding areas of the repertoire allows him an imaginative and poetic latitude only given to a musical elite. Telescoped phrasing, rapid scrambles for security, waywardness and pedantry he gladly leaves to others, firmly but gently guiding you to the very heart of the composer. His Appassionata is characterised by muted gunfire, as if the sonata's warlike elements were heard from a distance. Yet the lucidity with which he views such violence easily makes others' more rampant virtuosity become sound and fury, signifying little. His way, too, with the teasing toccata-like finales of Nos 12 and 22 is typical of his lyrical restraint, a far cry, indeed, from a more overt brilliance. How superbly he captures Beethoven's over-the-shoulder glance at Haydn, his great predecessor, yet gives you all of his forward-looking Romanticism in the early F minor Sonata (No 1). Again, how many pianists could achieve such unfaltering poise and sensitivity in No 4's Largo, con granespressione? These performances are a transparent act of musical love and devotion. Nothing is exaggerated yet virtually everything is included. Of all the modern versions of the sonatas, Lewis's is surely the most eloquent and persuasive. And, as in previous issues, Harmonia Mundi's sound is of demonstration quality.

These performances are a transparent act of musical love and devotion. Nothing is exaggerated yet virtually everything is included. Of all the modern versions of the sonatas (an there are many either complete or in progress), Lewis's is surely the most eloquent and persuasive.

There isn’t a bar in any of these sonatas that seem ill-considered
or hastily characterised; if tempos are generally on the measured
side, Lewis’s sense of structure and constant awareness of what
the harmonic rhythm is doing allows him to generate tension in the
most subtle ways.