Paul Lewis's Beethoven cycle reached its endpoint with the final three sonatas, each one a summit of piano literature. He played them with an unostentatious mastery of their technical demands and a vital sensitivity to the rich possibilities of their musical content, as well as to their formal freedoms.

It was this last aspect of his playing that impressed most during the E major sonata Op. 109, where his feeling for the music's contrasts and continuities gave the structure spontaneity, while amply revealing its diversity of character. Occasionally, there was a suggestion of hastiness, and his generous tone and pedalling could momentarily compromise clarity, but these were tiny blemishes on what was, overall, a magnificent conception.

The A flat sonata Op. 110 went even better. The lines of the fugue were beautifully separated out, though the Arioso Dolente, in which Beethoven emulates the overt emotions of Italian opera, needed an extra infusion of heightened vocality.

After the interval came the C minor sonata, Op. 111 in a performance that achieved consistent greatness. In the first movement, Lewis was on commanding form, giving every gesture the grandeur of expression it needed. Every note had its own place and its own space, as it did too in the transcendent set of variations, where Lewis's attention to colour and texture gave his interpretation not only authority but also drew the listener on to another plane. The lengthy silence at the end signified just how far he and Beethoven had taken us. It was not easy to come back.