LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Piano concerto No.4. Overtures: Coriolan, The Creatures of Prometheus Kristian Bezuidenhout, Freiburger Barockorchester, cond. Pablo Heras-Casado

In their own way Beethoven’s five piano concertos relate a part of their composer’s life. In the previous volume of this complete recording, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado and the musicians of the Freiburger Barockorchester explored the beginning (Concerto no.2, a springboard to Viennese fame) and the end (the ‘Emperor’) of the story; they now turn to the most personal of all the Beethoven concertos, the Fourth, which, at a time when the spectre of total deafness threatened his career, shattered the conventions of the genre – as did such orchestral works as Coriolan and the Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus.