Not Showing Its' Age

There are many recommendable cycles of Beethoven Piano Sonatas, both historic, contemporary and ongoing but since I don't have the luxury of time to sample all of them I have settled for now on this disk which highlights three of the more popular ones. A budget re-release of re-mastered vintage recordings, the pianist is Arthur Rubinstein and the sonatas played are the Pathetique, Moonlight, Appasionata and Les Adieux. These feature some familiar melodies of course and are favourites for the "bleeding chunks" treatment on commercial classical music stations but they make much more sense heard in the context of the complete work. The re-mastering is tastefully done and it is hard to guess the age of the recordings from the sound quality provided. Rubinstein's playing is of the kind that defined these works in the first half of the last century and nowadays, more "out there" approaches are tried to give individuality or quirkiness or historic validity. But there is something comforting about these mainstream interpretations which are nonetheless full of intellectual rigour. I may investigate the sonatas further in the future but for now, this disk is a good representative selection for my collection.