‘Of Beethoven and his worlds in music, some will remember more the herald of pure music or of programme music, the Dionysian bearer of joy, or the man suffering from suicidal impulses, the builder or the destroyer. In any event, the creator stopped writing piano sonatas in 1822, the year of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s death. All the transgressions that are propounded by Beethoven’s Promethean output would be unable to conceal his faithfulness to the ideals of Aufklärung, his classic desire to lead, beyond the asperities, to a resolution and, beyond darkness, to light.’ Brigitte François Sappey

Eric Le Sage approaches this cycle with the sensitive vision of a great interpreter, henceforth renowned for his complete Schumann and Fauré recordings.