Late Piano Works

DUO KOROLIOV

Although Beethoven's opus numbers extend to op. 135, there were no more piano sonatas after op. 111. There is, though, a variation cycle lasting almost an hour on a simple theme by Anton Diabelli. This astonishing cycle takes the listener into such distant moods, that even after the first variation it doesn't matter what the theme is, it is all so unmistakably Beethoven. Also on this disc, two cycles of "simple" piano pieces entitled "Bagatelles". Small, unimportant things, trivialities, which make you think involuntarily of much later romantic composers. And finally, the usually so self-critical Beethoven allocated his penultimate opus number (op. 134) to a "simple" piano score of the "Große Fuge" op. 133. So how does all this fit together? Obviously, the scope of classical forms was too narrow for Beethoven. Did this apparent simplicity serve a wider purpose? The very last movement of the very last opus, the string quartet op. 135, is based on the text "Must it be? - It must be! " Was Beethoven in his last works pursuing an overall objective? Or did it all just happen like that? You can find these last works for piano alongside each other on this release. Just listen to the first few seconds of the "Große Fuge" with Ljupka Hadzigeorgiewa and Evgeni Koroliov. Succumb to the charm and allure of these two musicians, who lead us selflessly and confidently through this perplexing hiatus in musical history.

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