Beethoven: 6 Bagatelles & Piano Sonatas Nos. 31 & 32 Yevgeny Sudbin

• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827): Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-Flat Major, Op. 110:
• 1 Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-Flat Major, Op. 110: I. Moderato cantabile molto espressivo 06:08
• 2 Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-Flat Major, Op. 110: II. Allegro molto 02:05
• 3 Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-Flat Major, Op. 110: III. Adagio ma non troppo - Fuga. Allegro ma non troppo 09:14
• Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111:
• 4 Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111: I. Maestoso - Allegro con brio ed appassionato 09:12
• 5 Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111: II. Arietta. Adagio molto semplice e cantabile 17:48
• 6 Bagatelles, Op. 126:
• 6 6 Bagatelles, Op. 126: No. 1, Andante con moto, cantabile e con piacevole 02:44
• 7 6 Bagatelles, Op. 126: No. 2, Allegro 02:28
• 8 6 Bagatelles, Op. 126: No. 3, Andante, cantabile ed espressivo 02:30
• 9 6 Bagatelles, Op. 126: No. 4, Presto 03:44
• 10 6 Bagatelles, Op. 126: No. 5, Quasi allegretto 01:56
• 11 6 Bagatelles, Op. 126: No. 6, Presto - Andante amabile e con moto 03:53
• Total Runtime 01:01:42

Info for Beethoven: 6 Bagatelles & Piano Sonatas Nos. 31 & 32

BIS ecopak Yevgeny Sudbin has previously recorded Beethoven’s piano concertos – releases which have received international acclaim, for instance on the website ClassicsToday.com: ‘A Beethoven experience you will not want to miss.’ For his first disc featuring solo works by Beethoven, Sudbin has chosen the two final sonatas and the Six Bagatelles, Op. 126 – late works written between 1821 and 1824, just a couple of years before the composer’s death. There are numerous anecdotes that testify to the fact that Beethoven was highly temperamental. But in his liner notes to this disc, Sudbin writes of another, contrasting side to the composer: ‘warmth, generosity and wisdom – with unexpected outbursts of cheeky humour – are also unmistakably among Beethoven’s qualities and particularly evident in the works on this recording’. If Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas form one of the most important collections of works in the history of music, then the final ones belong to his crowning achievements. Various musicians and musicologists have commented on them, hearing a hard-won triumph of the spirit in the great fugue of the final movement of Op. 110, and interpreting Op. 111 – and especially its second movement, the famous Arietta – as a last farewell. The set of Bagatelles was composed only months after Beethoven had completed his monumental Ninth Symphony. It became the last work for piano to be published in his lifetime, and together the six brief pieces form a distillate of a lifetime of writing for and playing the piano.

Yevgeny Sudbin, piano

Yevgeny Sudbin
has been hailed by The Telegraph as ‘potentially one of the greatest pianists of the 21st century’. As BIS Records’ only exclusive artist, all of Yevgeny’s recordings have met with critical acclaim and are regularly featured as CD of the Month by BBC Music Magazine or Editor’s Choice by Gramophone. His Scriabin recording was awarded CD of the Year by The Telegraph and received the MIDEM Classical Award for Best Solo Instrument Recording at Cannes. It was described by Gramophone as ‘a disc in a million’ while the International Record Review stated that Yevgeny’s Rachmaninov recording ‘confirms him as one of the most important pianistic talents of our time’.

Yevgeny performs regularly in many of the world's finest venues and concert series, both in recital and with orchestra, including Tonhalle Zurich; Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall (International Piano Series) and Wigmore Hall (London Pianoforte Series) in London; Concertgebouw (Meesterpianisten, Amsterdam); Avery Fisher Hall (New York) and Davies Symphony Hall (San Francisco). Recent engagements and tours have included orchestras such as New Zealand Symphony, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, Lucerne Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. His performance of Rachmaninov's Concerto No.1 at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall was described by The Telegraph as ‘sublime.’

Yevgeny has collaborated with some of the world’s most influential conductors, such as Neeme Järvi, Charles Dutoit, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Osmo Vänskä, Hannu Lintu, Tugan Sokhiev, Mark Wigglesworth, Andrew Litton, Dmitri Slobodeniouk and Vassily Sinaisky. His love of chamber music has led him to collaborate with many other musicians including Alexander Chaushian, Ilya Gringolts, Hilary Hahn, Julia Fischer, the Chilingirian Quartet and many others. Appearances at festivals include Aspen, Mostly Mozart, Tivoli, Nohant, La Roque d'Antheron, Menton and Verbier.

Recent and future engagements include concerts and recording projects with the Tapiola Sinfonetta and Osmo Vänskä, Netherlands Philharmonic and Ivor Bolton, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Michael Seal, Rotterdam Philharmonic and Stanislav Kochanovsky, and extensive touring in North America. He also returns to many recital stages, including the Wigmore Hall, Moscow International House of Music and Serate Musicali (Milan).

Yevgeny was born in St Petersburg in 1980 and began his musical studies at the Specialist Music School of the St Petersburg Conservatory with Lyubov Pevsner at the age of 5. He emigrated with his family to Germany in 1990 where he continued his studies at Hanns Eisler Musikhochschule (Galina Ivanzova). In 1997 Yevgeny moved to London to study at the Purcell School and subsequently the Royal Academy of Music where he completed his Bachelor and Masters degrees under Christopher Elton. He was supported by the Hattori and Pulvermacher Foundations as well as The Wall Trust, of which he is now Vice President. In 2010, he was awarded a Fellowship by Academy and is now a Visiting Professor.

Booklet for Beethoven: 6 Bagatelles & Piano Sonatas Nos. 31 & 32