MUSIC

Beethoven: Last Three Piano Sonatas

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2023
8:00 PM

Carnegie Hall
881 Seventh Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan

$121-$199
TICKETS + INFORMATION

This is beyond the usual scope of this List. But sometimes an out-of-bounds show is so special we have to forgo our parameters and make sure you know about it. Since she recorded these great pieces and played them in New York almost 15 years ago, Mitsuko Uchida has blossomed from an able and interesting Beethoven interpreter to one of the all-time greats (just listen to her recent recording of the Diabelli Variations [an even later piece than these final sonatas], which stands as one of the three or four best ever released [I’d say it’s just the best, frankly]). Late Beethoven — I’m tossing hyperbole around like confetti, but this music and this interpreter deserve it — remains perhaps the most visionary music in the entire European tradition (so it’s not so unListable after all), and Uchida has the temperament, intellect, and skill set (meaning she’s NOT a virtuoso) to do it up right.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Gallagher’s: the best Old Skool steakhouse in New York. (Beethoven would have LOVED it!)