Each of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas has a unique character. They give the impression of living entities with which the performer or listener must initiate his own relationship, either trusting or conflicting. Beethoven only gave two of his sonatas a programmatic title (No.8, the ‘Pathétique’; and No.26, ‘Lebewohl – Abwesenheit – Wiedersehen’), but the unusually vivid musical images prompted others to endow many of the sonatas with more or less appropriate titles, weaving diverse hypotheses and legends around them.