Young Hyun Cho: Beethoven's Piano Sonatas Nos. 12 – 15
Blue Griffin

Continuing on her quest to record all thirty-two of Ludwig van Beethoven's piano sonatas, Young Hyun Cho now follows her earlier Sony release of the composer's final three with one on Blue Griffin featuring numbers twelve through fifteen. Produced and engineered by the label's head Sergei Kvitko, Beethoven Piano Sonatas Nos. 12 – 15 should receive as much acclaim as the earlier one for the exceptional calibre of its performances. Even though the four pieces compose a small part of the entire set, their scope is vast. Cho would appear to be the perfect pianist for the project, given her impeccable technique and the clarity of expression and articulation shown in these performances. Couple that with Beethoven's towering lucidity of writing and form and you've got a composer-performer combination that's tough to beat.

As much of a Beethoven expert as Cho clearly is, she impresses whether she's playing something from the Classical, Romantic, or contemporary repertoire. The Korea-born Cho took to the piano early and eventually moved to the United States to study and earn degrees from the Peabody Conservatory and Eastman School of Music. She's performed around the world on some of its most prestigious stages and with some of its greatest orchestras. When not performing or recording, she's an associate professor of piano at Michigan State University College of Music, having earlier been an associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Her detailed program notes illuminate the four works with insightful analyses and articulate descriptions. She's not hyperbolic in describing Beethoven's sonatas as “cornerstones of the piano repertoire” and hugely influential for the composers who followed. That's attributable in part to the fact that, while he played a number of instruments, piano was the one through which his compositions emerged. To provide context, Cho notes that the sonatas on this recording were written around 1800, the same period that saw his first symphony, string quintet, and two violin and piano sonatas come into being. Given that, it doesn't surprise that sonatas twelve through fifteen often include the kind of counterpoint and textures one finds in his symphonic and chamber music pieces. It's natural for cross-pollination to have occurred.

Contrasts of tone, style, and mood are pronounced between the four but also within each, with three of them featuring four movements and the fourteenth three. Each sonata is identified with a different name, the twelfth known as the “Funeral March,” the thirteenth “Sonata quasi una fantasia” (“sonata in the manner of a fantasia”), the fourteenth “Moonlight” (“Sonata quasi una fantasia” too), and the fifteenth “Pastoral.” While such labels are helpful in differentiating them, it shouldn't be forgotten that each work is multi-dimensional and hardly reducible to a single character.

Things take an arresting turn immediately when the twelfth's opening movement is structured as a theme and variations—the first time, Cho clarifies, Beethoven applied this idea to his piano sonatas. The theme itself is lovely, a simple, elegant, and direct expression delivered with care by the pianist at just the right tempo. Whereas the second variation is an exuberant romp, the third exudes a sombre air consistent with its minor-key setting, the fourth a lighthearted, youthful breeziness, and the fifth a gentle radiance. Speaking of breezy, the energized second movement is a scherzo that puts Cho's technical command to the test, and she meets the challenge handsomely. The “Funeral March” movement was performed at the composer's own funeral, and it's easy to understand why when the solemn dignity of its expression is so affecting. A closing “Allegro” reinstates the vitality of the second part, and the virtuosic Cho takes to its swinging, almost jazzy feel with aplomb.

With both carrying the “Sonata quasi una fantasia” description, the thirteenth and fourteenth capture Beethoven striving to leave convention behind to pursue a freer and more improvisatory approach. One way he did this was by encouraging the pianist to play each sonata continuously, with breaks between movements eschewed for a fantasia-like presentation. That said, the change from the first movement to the second in the thirteenth is clear when the slow unfurl of the opening shifts to the torrential flow of the second. There's an undeniable prettiness to the serene hush of the third, while the sunny fourth charms with a bright-eyed disposition. The fourteenth sonata is, of course, known as the “Moonlight Sonata,” even if it wasn't the composer who deemed it such (that was German writer Ludwig Rellstab, who likened the opening movement's mood to, as Cho notes, “moonlight shimmering on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland”). The haunting triplets that introduce the sonata are justifiably famous and offer as compelling an illustration of his music's timelessness as anything else on the release. The central minuet exudes no shortage of charm before the stampeding final movement resolves the sonata with fiery, roller coaster-like fury.

August 2025