Fresh from their recent, acclaimed recordings of the complete sonatas, French duo Xavier Phillips and François-Frédéric Guy take us through the three revolutionary mature works, from the sublime, symphonic-scaled A major sonata to the radical dramas of the Op. 102 pair. Beethoven threw out the rule book in his extraordinarily condensed ‘free sonata’ No. 4 in C major which moves swiftly from tender simplicity to bellicose argument, while the dynamic final sonata is the only one in which Beethoven allowed the cello an ardent full-length slow movement.

‘Guy and Phillips are unassailable… wonderful elasticity, combining mischievousness with ardent tenderness, as Beethoven demands.’ Gramophone