Beethoven: Bagatelles – review

Steven Osborne (piano) (Hyperion)Beethoven wrote his Op 119 Bagatelles – 11 short pieces each lasting no more than a minute or two – when he was working on two of his biggest works: the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony. His Leipzig publisher complained that they were such insignificant trifles no one would believe they were by Beethoven: not only slight but on the whole easy too. The joy of having a player of Steven Osborne's spare, rhythmically incisive brilliance shows the idiocy of t...

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