Pianist David Breitman writes of his new release of Beethoven music for piano and cello: “I first became interested in historical keyboards as a piano...

Pianist David Breitman writes of his new release of Beethoven music for piano and cello: “I first became interested in historical keyboards as a piano student in Boston in the 1970s. Boston was then, and is still, an early music centre, and I had frequent opportunities to hear renaissance and baroque ensembles in concert. I eventually decided to take some harpsichord lessons with Robert Hill, freshly returned from Amsterdam where he had been studying with Gustav Leonhardt. The first early piano I encountered was one that Robert’s brother Keith built and brought to Boston. My first reaction after playing a few passages was “Ah! Beethoven’s cello sonatas!” I had been struggling with the G minor sonata, and it became obvious to me that the brilliant passagework for the piano- which drowns out the cello unless played mp instead of ff as Beethoven indicates- would work perfectly if only I had a piano like this.. that finally happened in 1987, when I began doctoral studies with Malcolm Bilson at Cornell University. Since then I have had the rare privilege- with excellent instruments and fabulous colleagues- of rediscovering the monuments of Classical chamber music (sonatas and trios of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven) in historical style.