Paul Lewis at the National Concert Hall, February 25 2015

Paul Lewis is regarded as one of the finest performers of Beethoven and Schubert currently active. He is a former pupil of Brendel, the supreme interpreter of this music, and although there are moments where Lewis reminds of his old teacher in these performances of the last three Beethoven sonatas, he is entirely his own man.

Much of the time, Lewis brings a Schubertian reflective intensity to Beethoven. This is particularly pronounced in the introspective Adagio and Cantabile sections of the three sonatas. On listening to these performances it would be easy to reverse history and imagine that these sonatas were influenced by Schubert’s last sonatas, and not the other way around.

One of the fabulous assets Lewis possesses is an ability to imbue his interpretations with many wild, crazy gestures without ever inviting the notion that he is an ‘eccentric’ player. This is phenomenally effective in late Beethoven: this music is wild and complex, but despite its oddness it always feels as if it is snuffling around the very edges of order and logic. Completely insane, but only just about. The approach taken tonight leads to totally dramatic Beethoven, full of questions and twists.

Lewis plays with great dynamic range and his technique is so stunning that when the infamous double trills arrive in Piano Sonata No. 32 Op. 111 you half-expect a third hand to appear and effortlessly add another trill or two. These pieces are an Everest of technical effort, but Lewis has the luxury of essentially ignoring this and concentrating on his extraordinarily convincing interpretations.

There is no encore after the final world-ending bars of Op. 111, and it’s certainly the right decision; after all, what could follow that?

Beethoven:
Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major Op. 109

Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat Major Op. 110

Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor Op. 111