Édouard Herriot once said, "In Beethoven, everything comes from within. His model is not the rule of the schoolroom." This is particularly true of the late sonatas, which contain elements of both an intimate journal (Romain Rolland saw in Op.101 "a day in the inner life" of Beethoven) and total experimentation (the variations of Op.109) before attaining the mystical serenity of the very last sonata, Op.111. Here is Nikolai Lugansky's powerful vision of this pianistic Everest.