HJ Lim EMI Debut - Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas May 22

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Young Pianist makes her EMI Classics Debut with Complete Beethoven Sonatas, to be released exclusively on iTunes for $9.99 on May 22


“In her hands, Beethoven has moved from VHS to Blu Ray in a heartbeat. Everything is dangerously invigorating, strikingly original. This is the kind of album that will save the classical recording industry.“ The Telegraph
The brilliant 24-year-old Korean pianist HJ Lim, who signed an exclusive contract with EMI Classics in September 2011, has recorded her first project for the label, an ambitious traversal of the Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas. As an unheard of feat in launching a new artist, EMI will release Lim’s Complete Beethoven Sonatas on the iTunes Music Store for only $9.99, a strategy commonly used with compilations, but never with a new release until now. A Yamaha exclusive artist, HJ was also the first to record the complete sonatas on a Yamaha CFX concert grand piano, the crown jewel of their remarkable piano collection.

Pianists who record the Beethoven sonatas cycle usually do so at the peak of long and storied careers. With this bold and controversial recording project, HJ Lim aims to prove that at the age of 24 she is ready to record the Beethoven sonatas now. She has the intelligence and artistic vision, and her powerful performances have been captivating both traditional and new audiences. She has already performed complete Beethoven sonatas cycles over eight days each in France, Germany and Japan.

Lim’s thoughtful and unique approach to such an immense undertaking further defines itself in her organization of the sonatas into eight seperate volumes, each with a disctinct theme: Heroic Ideals, The Eternal Feminine – Youth, Aspects of an Inflexible Personality, Nature, Extremes in Collision, Resignation and Action, Eternal Feminine – Maturity, and Destiny. Says Lim: “To perform Beethoven’s sonatas is not just to interpret music, but also an attempt to understand the multi-faceted psychology of a human being,“ and her extraordinarily in-depth and thoughtful liner notes, which break down her reasoning behind the themes and the groupings of sonatas, make it clear that she has reflected at length about each of these 32 works.

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