Another Thursday, another installation in András Schiff's lecture series exploring Beethoven's complete piano sonatas. Free, exclusive, brilliant and all the rest.
Today Schiff focuses on four sonatas from 1801, one of Beethoven's most productive years: number 12 in A-flat major, opus 26; number 13 in E-flat major, opus 27 no. 1; number 14 in C-sharp minor, opus 27 no. 2 (better known as the "Moonlight"); and the "Pastoral" sonata, number 15 in D major, opus 28. They're the last sonatas that you can reasonably call early, and in them, Schiff argues, Beethoven is "trying to reach new territories, new heights".
How to deal with the first movement of that over-played, over-famous Moonlight sonata, hackneyed and abraded by endless Classic FM reruns? Schiff's advice is simple: stick the pedal down and go twice as fast as you think.
We've put the lectures in one place for ease of reference, at guardian.co.uk/schiff, and will be updating it each Thursday as we release the fresh crop of sonatas.
An even easier option is to let your iTunes or your podcast program do the hard work for you - subscribe to the Guardian's Culture feed and you'll get each lecture as soon as it's published.
Part 1. Piano sonata in A-flat major, opus 26 Download now
Part 2. Piano sonata in E-flat major, opus 27 no 1 Download now
Part 3. Piano sonata in C-sharp minor, opus 27 no 2 ('Moonlight') Download now
Part 4. Piano sonata in D major, opus 28 ('Pastoral') Download now
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