The best web-find of the summer: The complete cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas, performed by the young pianist Artur Pizzaro, for free on the Beeb. If these sonatas got me through three days of clearing out old files, they’ll get you through any summer task you care to name. Click here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/pizarro/.
Are Jay Nordlinger or Terry Teachout in, by the way? If so, gentlemen, would you mind letting us know what you make of Mr. Pizzaro? He comes from Portugal, which leads me to wonder whether he might be a distant relation of the conquistador Pizzaro, who came from neighboring Extremadura, but that is literally the only thought that the name Artur Pizzaro brings to my musically untutored mind.