“If Beethoven has been everywhere in this year of his 250th birthday, innovative ways of presenting his music have not. Among the symphony cycles, string quartet surveys and re-enactments of his most famous concerts, few artists have asked us explicitly to rethink what Beethoven might mean for us today.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard has done that — or was planning to. A restless intellect as incisive in Bach as he is intelligible in Boulez, the French pianist, 62, was scheduled to give recitals at the Celebrity Series of Boston and the 92nd Street Y before the coronavirus outbreak intervened — recitals that would have put Beethoven in the context of other avant-gardists.” –The New York Times