Bezuidenhout: Beethoven Piano Concertos 2 and 5 review – boisterous and charming

Bezuidenhout/Heras-Casado/Freiburger Barockorchester(Harmonia Mundi) Kristian Bezuidenhout and Pablo Heras-Casado make these concertos sing in readings that feel both freewheeling and profound

Angela Hewitt review – brain-teasing Bach and Beethoven’s bite

Hewitt’s celebration of Beethoven in his 250th anniversary year, packaged with music by Bach, a source of his inspiration, was brilliant, exuberant and expressive

Beethoven: the 1808 concert review – a remarkable evening, then, and now

Two conductors, two orchestras and two pianists recreated this historic four-hour four-premiere concert in a passionate and glorious evening of music

LSO/Rattle review – Berg and Beethoven see all on top form but something was missing

Soprano Dorothea Röschmann savoured every word of Berg’s Early Songs and Rattle was in his element, but this programme ultimately felt over controlled

Prisoner of the State review – timeless beauty in Fidelio update

David Lang’s short reworking of Beethoven’s opera, conducted here by Ilan Volkov, gives it a universal slant – even if it fails to dispel its dramatic problems

Beethoven: The Late Quartets review – serene and assured performances

Brodsky Quartet (Chandos, three CDs)

Schiff/Budapest Festival Orchestra/Fischer review – no finer Beethoven playing

Beethoven’s 250th anniversary celebrations began with two perfectly articulated concertos offering exciting new insights

Beethoven: Leonore review – crisp, convincing Fidelio origin story

Petersen/Schmitt/Ivashchenko/Johannsen/Freiburg Baroque O/Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi, two CDs)Leonore was Beethoven’s first version of Fidelio and René Jacobs eloquently champions the earlier score in this lithe live recording

Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas review – at his best, Levit is outstanding

Levit scales the heights over nine CDs, though excessive speed means musical sense is lost in some sonatas

Home listening: a feast of late Beethoven piano sonatas

Steven Osborne, Yevgeny Sudbin and Jonathan Biss underline the composer’s humanity. Plus: the life of Michael Tippett on Radio 3

Prom 18: MusicAeterna/Currentzis review – more Beethoven-sounding than ever before

In his first prom, Teodor Currentzis, ever the showman, pushed his players until the Second and Fifth Symphonies sounded as radical as they must have when new

The week in classical: Sabine Devieilhe & Anne Le Bozec; City of London Sinfonia – review

A notable Wigmore Hall debut takes on the air of a Paris salon. Plus, a Beethoven masterclass from Brett Dean

Home listening: Llŷr Williams’s Beethoven at Wigmore Hall; Marc-André Hamelin does Schubert

The Welshman’s nine sonata concerts arrive on box set; as does Hamelin. Plus: Inside Music gets better and better

SWRSO Stuttgart/Norrington review – buoyant, brisk and irrepressible

Roger Norrington conducted beautifully detailed, historically informed performances in this all-Beethoven bill

Beethoven: The Late Quartets CD review – revelations and clarity on period strings

Playing with gut strings and on early 19th century-design bows, Quatuor Mosaïques bring warmth and subtlety to these fascinating works, but the set doesn’t quite sit alongside the greatest recordings