Jonathan Biss belongs to that tradition of pianists who like to write about what they play, among them Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim and Jeremy Denk. Biss’s Beethoven’s Shadow, a Kindle ebook, explores his preoccupation with recording Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas. For Vol 5, the 35-year-old American has again chosen early, middle and late period works: Nos 3, 25, 27 and 28. Biss’s approach, combining extreme delicacy, poetic questing and hurtling rapidity and risk, works especially well in No 28 in A major Op 101, the start of Beethoven’s final period. The contrapuntal elements remain lucid, the textures clear, features reflecting in the earlier works too. A fascinating series worth collecting.