Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson has released a new album on Deutsche Grammophon that centres on Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 30 in E major, Op 109, placing it within a broader musical context linking the composer to Bach and Schubert. The album, titled 'Opus 109', eschews the conventional approach of recording Beethoven's final three piano sonatas together, instead exploring the influences and connections between works in related keys.
The album opens with Bach's E major Prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, reflecting Ólafsson's view that Beethoven's late style is deeply rooted in Baroque improvisatory elements and dance forms. All pieces on the album are in E major or E minor, keys that Ólafsson, who has synaesthesia, associates with different shades of green.
Following the Bach prelude, Ólafsson offers a diaphanous reading of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 27 in E minor, Op 90, which he sees as a direct precursor to Op 109. A pellucid account of Bach's final Partita serves as a substantial interlude before Schubert's rarely heard Piano Sonata No 6 in E minor, a work that seems indebted to Beethoven's Op 90.
The centrepiece of the album, Beethoven's Op 109, is delivered with exceptional variety in articulation, described as one of the most purely beautiful accounts on record. The seamless transition from Schubert into the Beethoven sonata is breathtaking, opening up a transcendent vista for listeners willing to embrace Ólafsson's conceptual approach.
