Anne Gastinel . François-Frédéric Guy

In the last few years, the CD market has become literally saturated with new recordings of Beethoven's sonatas for cello and piano. The refreshing version from the French cellist Anne Gastinel and pianist François-Frédéric Guy is the one that most appeals to our imagination. Gastinel and Guy bring out the modern aspects of these sonatas. As there were no real forerunners in the genre for Beethoven to follow, he had free rein to try out new ideas. He considered the sonata for cello and piano an ideal terrain on which to experiment with textures and timbres. The quest for renewed consonance largely determined the course and certainly the form of this work. It is precisely this aspect that puts Gastinel and Guy to the fore. Together they explore a broad spectrum of timbres and don't shy away from the extremes. The duo opens this concert with the Third sonata, opus 69, which is certainly the most frequently played sonata because of its evenly balanced form and distinct lyrical character. Both sonatas in opus 102 herald the start of the late-Beethoven period. They are much rawer in tone and more compact, but certainly not less expressive.