Beethoven Piano Concertos 3, 4 & 5 - Classic FM Magazine

Consummately played and engineered, these dedicated performances will give most pleasure to those who prefer Beethoven as a proto-Romantic rather than a subversive Classicist. Every now and then these trailblazing scores emerge with all guns blazing, but for the most part the raw emotional power of the Bonn renegade's genius emerges as ‘expertly observed' rather than ‘truly lived through'. This is not to suggest that these are in any way under-powered performances, as witness the resplendent outer movements of the ‘Emperor', rather that Beethoven's ‘sweat and sinew' musical struggles occasionally feel too easily conquered.