I have studied intensively with Jacob Lateiner for a few years at the Juilliard School and was friend with him for a lot longer, before he passed away on December 12, 2010. Those were some of the best years of my life. One of my prized collections is the diary we kept for each piano lesson, all in his inimitable handwriting and drawing.
One of my last conversations with him on the phone went something like this:
"Hello Professor Lateiner, how are you?"
"Growing old, just growing old."
I have the 1968 LP of Jacob Lateiner playing Beethoven's final word on the piano sonata. Very intellectual playing here, with a fine and delicate balance between articulating every single dot and slur and conveying a personal message through the reading.
At his Beethoven class in the '90s, he used to play this record and said that this is an example of what not to do. Nevertheless, this 1968 recording with the RCA is a fine example of the Beethoven specialist's indelible contribution to the LvB legacy.
I converted the LP into this YouTube video, and the score pictured is the actual first edition of the sonata in my own collection.
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