Beethoven's five piano concertos relate, in a sense, part of the composers life: some twenty years during which a young musician from Bonn made several revised versions of the first concerto he wrote (a springboard to Viennese success that ended up being called no.2), before becoming the familiar Emperor of music embodied by the brilliant inspiration of no.5. Two hundred and fifty years after his birth, it is with these two extremes that Kristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado and the Freiburger Barockorchester have chosen to start an exciting period-instrument trilogy of the concertos that bids fair to be a landmark!

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REVIEW:

Bezuidenhout’s performance of the Emperor concerto is scintillatingly dramatic, heroic, deftly articulated and, above all, fresh; and the instrument he plays seems to possess plenty of power. The Second Concerto is given equally enticingly. Both readings are enhanced by the brilliantly coloured playing of the Freiburgers under Pablo Heras-Casado.

– Sunday Times (UK)