(Deutsche Grammophon)
Olafsson’s account of Beethoven’s Op 109 is one of the most beautiful on record, the centrepiece of a recording that links the composer to Bach and Schubert
isinclined to follow the herd and record Beethoven’s three final piano sonatas as a job lot, Víkingur Ólafsson has chosen to circle one of them, No 30 in E major, Op 109, locating it in a musical timeline that reflects both the composer’s past and the Viennese milieu of the early 18th century.
For Ólafsson, looking backwards means turning to Bach, whose musical fingerprints he detects all over late Beethoven. The latter’s uninhibited invention, he argues, has its roots firmly in the baroque with its improvisatory elements and enthusiasm for the dance.
The album opens with Bach’s E major Prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (indeed, all the works here are either in E major or E minor, keys that the Icelandic pianist, who is synaesthetic, associates with different shades of green). Notes sounded with a delicate baroque detachment carry over into a diaphanous reading of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 27 in E minor, Op 90, a work Ólafsson sees as a direct precursor of Op 109.
