This collection was recorded live across eight concerts at the Staatsoper unter den Linden, Berlin in June and July 2005. Beethovens 32 piano sonatas have been at the heart of Daniel Barenboims musical life since childhood and through his remarkable career, Barenboim has gained a unique understanding of Beethoven s music. Having performed much of the composers solo, chamber, orchestral and operatic repertoire, Barenboims performances of these varied and complex works give a fascinating perspective into one of musics greatest geniuses from one of the most gifted and complete musicians of our time. Having first performed a complete cycle of Beethovens piano sonatas in Tel Aviv in 1960, Barenboim has repeated the feat many times around the world, most recently at the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, in 2002, at the Vienna Musikverein in 2004 (when he also conducted the Palestine Youth Orchestra in its inaugural concert and played a Beethoven sonatas concert in Ramallah), at the Berlin Staatsoper in 2005, and at both La Scala, Milan, and Londons Royal Festival Hall in 2008. Barenboim says of the Beethoven piano sonatas: This music encompasses everything that a great human being is capable of in thought, in feeling, in intuition, in temperament, in character. All the different attributes of the human condition are contained in this music.