“Aimard played the Beethoven first. Using the sustaining pedal sparingly, it was a performance of unflinching, sometimes startling clarity, especially in the colossal fugue with which the sonata ends, but it was always more convincing on the tumult than the poetry. The huge Adagio (the longest slow movement Beethoven ever wrote) was never as poised and other-worldly as it can seem in some performances, and the final climax was more clangorous than consoling.” –The Guardian