Last modified on Thu 10 Dec 2020 23.37 EST
Daniel Barenboim spent lockdown earlier this year practising the piano. One of the fruits of that intensive work has been his fifth complete recording of the Beethoven sonatas, together with the Diabelli Variations, which appeared in October. But Barenboim had already begun to revisit Beethoven for this yearâs anniversary 12 months ago, when he performed the piano trios in two concerts in Berlin, with his violinist son Michael and the cellist Kian Soltani, both former members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Whether these new discs are taken directly from those live performances isnât clear, but they were certainly recorded in the same venue, the Pierre Boulez Saal.