American pianist Jonathan Biss, who is recording the Beethoven sonatas at the pace of one disc a year, has a good way with words. The fact that Beethoven's Sonata in E flat, Op 7, and the Moonlight Sonata are both sonatas, he says, "seemsroughly as probable as a St Bernard and a dachshund both being dogs". Biss's playing is every bit as directly to the point, whether it's limning the atmospherically rippling stillness of the Moonlight 's first movement, the sheer brio that fires up the E flat Sonata, or the winding, benevolent fluidity and cheeky humour of the Sonata in F sharp, Op 78. And Biss takes the surprise- packed, switchback ride of the Fantasy, Op 77, in his stride, too. url.ie/dzi7