Programs

Ludwig van Beethoven: 32 Piano Sonatas (complete)

"Kigawa has made a habit of taking on a bold program toward the end of the summer at Le Poisson Rouge. In past years, he has played everything from Messiaen’s “Catalogue d’Oiseaux” to the complete solo works of Pierre Boulez and the entirety of Bach’s “The Art of Fugue.” Monday’s program is especially bold. Plenty of other pianists have played Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas in one sitting, but Kigawa will play his last five, an expansion that means the evening will also include the massive “Hammerklavier.” I wouldn’t miss it." - David Allen, The New York Times

"The first movement, with its strong three-note motto, subsequently borrowed by the likes of Schubert and Mahler, sounded here like a pronouncement of great import which leads to an emotionally heated discussion finally resolved in sensibility and reason. And Kigawa took the second movement (actually several movements in one) crisply and saw it as far, far removed from the first. The dancing phrases were there and even that delightfully syncopated passage which seems to foretell the age of jazz." - Barry L. Cohen, New Music Connoisseur