The litmus test for any successful performance of these works is, of course, the astonishing Kreutzer Sonata, one of the finest pieces of music ever written and certainly the most overwhelmingly emotional chamber music that I've ever heard. One of those rare works of art that leave you breathless and teary-eyed no matter how many times you hear it. Familiarity does not dull the emotional impact of this work, which, I believe, would have guaranteed Beethoven immortality had he not written anything else. Duo Concertante rise brilliantly to its innumerable challenges. Crucially, they are not simply undaunted by the virtuosic requirements on the part of the performer, they are undistracted and unperturbed by any notions of virtuosity and are much more interested in expressing the very raw emotions inherent in this music in the most natural way. This does not mean that we hear a rose-tinted, overly dramatic, overly mawkish rendering of the piece, nor is it an technically correct, overly respectful, and ossified rendition, but rather we hear two performers keenly alert to the music's technical difficulties, yet alive to the spiritual profundities imbued within. I believe it is a "great" performance of this most extraordinary of masterpieces simply because, like the versions listed above, it makes my heart pound and my palms sweat and my eyes glisten and it creates the illusion of suspended time in which I find myself wrenched outside of myself lost in this impossibly rich and endlessly rewarding music, the residual magic of which lies in its creative enlargement of the lives we live each time we listen in mute astonishment.
