Beethoven dedicated the Pathétique Sonata to Lichnowsky, who in return gave him a valuable quartet of Italian string instruments and shortly afterwards secured for him an annuity of 600 florins.

Today there are many artists who have recorded and performed all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, two of whom are Daniel Barenboim and Richard Goode. Beethoven wrote the Pathétique just as he was ...

But there are exceptional cases, and the case of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas is certainly one of them. The sonatas make up a wonderfully diverse yet utterly cogent and self-contained body of work.