A musical novel in 32 chapters, an artistic cosmos, a multi-faceted, colorful monolith towering within the history of music—for more than 200 years, Beethoven’s piano sonatas have captured the imagination of performers, listeners, academics, and artists of other disciplines like few other groups of works in the Western classical tradition. Following his successful Schubert sonata cycle in the opening season, Daniel Barenboim now takes on the complete sonatas of Beethoven. The project, scheduled to run over two seasons, will conclude in the Beethoven Year 2020. The first four programs include works from all periods of the composer’s creative life—from the 25-year-old’s first effort, dedicated to his teacher Haydn, to works from the last decade of his life, among them the monumental “Hammerklavier” Sonata.