Sarah Rothenberg - In Darkness and Light (2026) [Hi-Res]

Sarah Rothenberg, a "trailblazing pianist" (The Boston Globe) who plays with “eloquence and poetic intensity” (San Francisco Classical Voice) offers a fascinating musical response to the COVID era, a time of alternate extremes of anxiety and stillness. Beethoven’s transcendent last piano sonata of 1821-22, at the center of the program, is preceded by a moving new work by Vijay Iyer, written for Sarah Rothenberg. Beethoven’s Op. 111 leads us to Feldman’s Palais de Mari--summing up what Rothenberg describes as a period when “time had no measure; we seemed to lose the bar lines of our days.” Rothenberg’s liner essay puts it all in context, relating the music to the turbulent period in which this powerful and expressive album was conceived.