Hélène Grimaud, the singular pianist and Renaissance woman, opens this recital with two Rachmaninoff picture pieces, and then launches into the final piano sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert. Beethoven’s Op. 111 plays wildly against classical conventions, unfolding in just two movements and ending with an epic set of variations, which some say prophesied jazz and funk. Schubert’s enveloping B-flat major sonata is one of the most sublime works in the piano literature, the musical culmination of Schubert’s too-short life.
