Beethoven | Piano Sonatas Nos. 1-32 (Complete) (8CD)

Maurizio Pollini’s Beethoven Sonatas cycle has reached completion after nearly 40 years.

We celebrate this major event with a handsome 8-CD capbox that provides a fitting testimonial to a great artistic partnership between pianist and record label.

The final recordings in the cycle (opp. 31 & 49) are being released simultaneously as a single CD.

Pollini / Beethoven: A story that goes back to June 1975, when Maurizio Pollini began recording the Beethoven Sonatas, starting with two of the last three – op. 109 and op. 110. The remaining Late Sonatas (op. 101, op. 106 and op. 111) followed in 1976 and 1977. Released initially as single LPs, the subsequent 3-LP set won a Gramophone Award.

The story ended in 2014, when the three Sonatas op. 31 and the two of op. 49 were recorded. (Pollini had also recorded op. 31 no. 2, the so-called “Tempest”, before.)

Nearly 40 years to record all 32 Sonatas: Pollini’s is the first cycle on Deutsche Grammophon since those of Daniel Barenboim (1981 – 1984) and Emil Gilels (1972 – 1984, incomplete).

For the release of the box set, the recordings have been arranged by opus number into a compact 8-CD set, with no duplications of repertoire. Although modest in size, the set stands as a monument of artistic achievement, and a remarkable testimony to an artistic partnership that goes back more than forty years.