Movement I: 00:00
Movement II: 06:40
Movement III*: 08:55 [Fugue I: 12:55 -- Fugue II (inversion): 18:00]

The sunniest of Beethoven's great late sonatas, and one that contains some beautiful and beautifully deployed fugal writing (note the complexity of some of the augmentation/diminution used -- see 18:35 -- and that the fugue subject is derived very directly from the opening phrase of the first movement).

It is interesting to note how different the fugal writing here is from that deployed in the Hammerklavier, No.29. Here the fugal writing is very strict, with the relatively meek exception of some doubling in the bass, but in the Hammerklavier the huge fugue includes some truly daring departures from the rules.

This is also the only late sonata which seems to have real humour in it (in the second movement).

Ashkenazy plays the first movement with incredible tenderness, and (thankfully) takes the fugal sections of the third movement with a speed that imbues with with prayerlike, reverential clarity.

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