Beethoven Sonatas

Beethoven’s works for cello and pianoforte performed by exceptional artists playing period instruments: Jarosław Thiel, artistic director of the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, and Katarzyna Drogosz, a specialist in period keyboard instruments. A rarity for lovers of top-shelf chamber music.

Album premiere: 2017

Publishers: National Forum of Music, CD Accord

Performers: Jarosław Thiel – cello, Katarzyna Drogosz – pianoforte

The chamber works of Ludwig van Beethoven are undoubtedly among the most important compositional achievements in the history of music. This makes it particularly surprising that in Polish phonography we find extremely few recordings devoted to this repertoire by local artists. The album of Beethoven’s sonatas from opus 5 by cellist Jarosław Thiel and pianist Katarzyna Drogosz goes some way towards filling this gap. These pieces occupy a special place in the history of music: they are the first sonatas written for cello, abandoning the tradition of composing based on the basso continuo technique in favour of a fully developed piano part and an equal role for both instruments. The recording process of these sonatas is also unique due to its pioneering nature – the artists played them on copies of period instruments in a historically informed performance style, which in the case of the classical repertoire is still unique on our record market. For Jarosław Thiel, artistic director of the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, who has been associated with the National Forum of Music (formerly the Wrocław Philharmonic) for years, this is his phonographic debut in chamber repertoire – although the artist has made over a dozen recordings as a member of German early music ensembles and conductor of the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra. The release of this recording will certainly create an important voice enriching the panorama of musical life within our artistic market – this is proven by the importance of the presented repertoire, the performance aesthetics inspired by the stylistic performance of early music, and the previous achievements of the instrumentalists participating in this production.

The album is part of the publishing project carried out as part of the European Capital of Culture Wrocław 2016 programme. It was released thanks to funding from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Awards: nomination for Fryderyk 2018 in the Album of the year – early music category