Of all the musical genres (that word again), the Piano Sonata is the only one that Beethoven worked on more or less consistently throughout his life. No large gaps as with the Symphonies or String ...

Beethoven composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 in 1800, and it was first performed three years later, on 5 April 1803. The most soulful of all Beethoven’s music is arguably found in his piano concertos.

Even as he struggled with the onset of deafness, Beethoven took the piano sonata into new realms of expressive power and beauty. Beethoven composed his Moonlight Sonata in 1801, the same year that — A ...