Ronald Brautigam fortepiano

Performers

Ronald Brautigam

fortepiano

Programme

Beethoven

• Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor Op. 13 ‘Pathétique’
• 15 Variations and a Fugue on an Original Theme in E♭ ‘Eroica Variations’ Op. 35
• Piano Sonata No. 14 in C# minor Op. 27 No. 2 ‘Moonlight’
• Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor Op. 57 ‘Appassionata’

About this concert

According to Friedrich Schiller, writing in the early 1790s, the purpose of art is to offer resistance to the inevitable shocks and tragedies of human existence. Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’ and monumental ‘Appassionata’ sonatas present mighty broadsides and meditative contrasts against life’s turbulent realities, the latter defining the piano sonata genre for generations to come.

Ronald Brautigam, described by The Times as ‘the king of fortepianists’, reclaims the composer’s soundworld using a modern copy of a Walter und Sohn instrument of c.1805.