Fairness, blind tasting and Beethoven

Every now and then, if I get a bit of free time at the weekend, I suffer a perverse urge to tackle a Beethoven piano sonata. And when I say 'tackle', I emphatically do not mean 'master'. It's more the amateur rugby sense: grappling, flailing, fumbling and eventually falling flat on my face, defeated. I enjoy it immensely. Luckily for my neighbours, however, I more often than not end up distracted by, and then engrossed in, the commentary that intersperses the music in my battered three-part edition (pictured).

These practical essays on interpretation and technique are a significant achievement of...