LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN  Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106, “Hammerklavier”

This monumental—and notoriously difficult—sonata marked a watershed in Beethoven’s artistic development. With its soaring rhetoric and penetrating introspection, the “Hammerklavier” anticipates the musical language of the composer’s so-called late period. The centerpiece of the work is an intensely ruminative Adagio sostenuto, which German critic Paul Bekker famously called “the apotheosis of pain, of that deep sorrow for which there is no remedy, and which finds expression not in passionate outpourings, but in the immeasurable stillness of utter woe.”

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF  Selected Preludes

Capitalizing on the phenomenal popularity of the Prelude in C-sharp Minor he wrote shortly after graduating from the Moscow Conservatory, Rachmaninoff went on to compose 23 additional preludes between 1901 and 1910. (Not coincidentally, the total of 24 equaled the number of preludes in his beloved Chopin’s Op. 28.) Like Rachmaninoff’s Second and Third piano concertos, which date from the same decade, the 10 short preludes we hear on this afternoon’s program display the composer-pianist’s trademark blend of Russian-flavored lyricism and transcendent virtuosity.