Christian Palm, photo
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Pierre Boulez Saal, Französische Straße 33 D, 10117 Berlin
This fourth of eight Sunday-afternoon recitals by Fabian Müller at Pierre Boulez Saal (an in-the-round venue) to cover Beethoven’s Thirty-Two Piano Sonatas, although I was able only to address the named work – Müller delivering a rather small-scale first movement (despite taking the exposition repeat) of clipped fleetness; a measured, dryly witty Scherzo; a spacious slow movement that bordered on the sublime, certainly the notes hung in the air with significance; and a Finale in which the pianist braved Beethoven’s off-the-scale demands with confident technique and musical perceptiveness, with a real sense of arrival and achievement in the coda. If there’s a chance to tune-in to further broadcasts in this now-halfway series, I shall take it.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Sonata in C minor Op. 10/1
Piano Sonata in B-flat major Op. 22
Piano Sonata in B-flat major Op. 106 “Hammerklavier”