Freiburger Barockorchester, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado / Ludwig van Beethoven. Piano Concertos nos. 2 & 5 ‘Emperor’ (CD)

Beethoven’s five piano concertos relate, in a sense, part of the composers life: some twenty years during which a young musician from Bonn made several revised versions of the first concerto he wrote (a springboard to Viennese success that ended up being called no.2), before becoming the familiar Emperor of music embodied by the brilliant inspiration of no.5. Two hundred and fifty years after his birth, it is with these two extremes that Kristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado and the Freiburger Barockorchester have chosen to start an exciting period-instrument trilogy of the concertos that bids fair to be a landmark!