Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Op 109, 110 and 111 – review  Alexei
Lubimov (Zig-Zag Territoires) 5 out of 5 5     • The Guardian,
• Jump to comments ()  It was fascinating to listen to Alexei
Lubimov playing Beethoven's last three sonatas on an Alois Graff
piano of 1828, just a few days after hearing Maurizio Pollini's
magisterial accounts of the same works in the Royal Festival
Hall in London. It's a measure of Lubimov's musical intelligence
that though the sound world of these performances is so far
removed from the power of Pollini's modern Steinway,
interpretatively they stand up very well to the comparison.
Performances of the late Beethoven piano sonatas on instruments
of his time are rare – though because the instrument itself was
evolving so rapidly during the composer's lifetime, and the
piano writing in his late works pushes beyond the boundaries of
what was practical at the time, it's hard to agree on the
instruments on which they should be played. Lubimov uses an
instrument made two years after Bee