Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard returns to the Pentatone label with a recording of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and Eroica Variations. The sonata is one of the pinnacles of Beethoven’s creative output, and arguably one of the highest mountains to climb for any pianist. To Aimard, it poses one of the most frightening tests of a performer’s life, but one that is as irresistible as it is insurmountable. The dazzling Eroica Variations are nicknamed after Beethoven’s iconoclastic Third Symphony and employ the melody he would later use as the main theme of the symphony’s finale.