Gilles Vonsattel Piano Recital

"A pianist well worth watching." —The New York Times

The extraordinary pianist Gilles Vonsattel offers a captivating look inside Beethoven becoming Beethoven as we know him, part of a series of special engagements in the Bay Area that see the stunningly original performer take on the composer's complete piano sonata cycle. From the charged urgency of young Beethoven already bending Classical form to his will, to the risk-taking revolutionary obsessed with transformation, through to the mature master composing genre-shattering tours de force, this Beethoven Bicentennial concert celebrates the composer triumphing at every stage of becoming. Note the exquisite fracturing motives and simmering tension of his youthful Opus 2, then track the evolution into luminous textures and pedal-washed sonorities of his Opus 53, "Waldstein." Opus 90 sees the confident and august master turning inward—two movements, two worlds—pairing rhetorical intensity with songful, intimate lyricism. Completed within a decade of his death, the unbridled Opus 101 is superbly designed with compressed gestures, fugitive ideas, and a visionary synthesis of counterpoint and poetry. With this rare performance of four landmark piano sonatas presented in a single evening, the extraordinary pianist Gilles Vonsattel hands us the keys to unlocking the psyche of a genius.