It was barely 10:01 a.m. when pianist Stewart Goodyear sat at a Steinway concert grand at the Mondavi Center. Time was of the essence, for this concert performance would not end until 13 hours later.

Even as he struggled with the onset of deafness, Beethoven took the piano sonata into new realms of expressive power and beauty. Beethoven composed his Moonlight Sonata in 1801, the same year that — A ...

The most famous of Beethoven’s violin sonatas have nicknames. The Spring is named for its air of pastoral ease – although that choice of name had nothing to do with the composer. The Kreutzer got its ...

Writing a warm if inevitably parti pris appreciation of Stephen Kovacevich’s nine-CD and 12-year project, producer John Fraser speaks of ‘an artist of almost self-punishing honesty and integrity’.

Long after most of my grandmother’s memories had faded, she would occasionally sit down at the piano bench, pull a yellowing score from a nearby shelf, and begin to play. Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without ...

Beethoven is considered by many the greatest classical music mind of all time. From his symphonies to his sonatas, I’m going to count down this extraordinary composer’s most memorable pieces of music.

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. A few years ago Igor Levit released a set of Beethoven’s late piano sonatas that drew great acclaim. It set off ...