Beethoven and the Spirit of Christmas
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in December 1770, probably on December 16, as he was baptized on the 17th, and it was customary at the time in…
Beethoven’s Mass in C
Beethoven’s Mass in C major, Op. 86, is much less well known than his late sacred masterpiece the Missa Solemnis, and a common attitude sees it as…
Beethoven’s Cello Sonatas: A Journey Through Life
Years ago cellist Steven Isserlis set out on a quest, a quest to discover how performing all five Beethoven sonatas in sequence would work. He first asked…
Beethoven: The Price of Genius
At the fourteenth exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession, held between April 15 and June 27, 1902, the German sculptor Max Klinger unveiled his…
Revitalizing Beethoven’s Music: The Legacy of Nikolaus Harnoncourt
“Beauty is on the edge of catastrophe.” —Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016) When Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt passed away in March, 2016, at the age of 86, he…
“Christ on the Mount of Olives”: Beethoven’s Passion Oratorio
In 1802 Ludwig van Beethoven was gradually going deaf—a condition which would become complete about ten years later. While taking a rest in the countryside, he wrote…
The Mystique of Late Beethoven
“The music is not pretty or even attractive. It merely is sublime.” —Harold C. Schonberg From reading musical commentary, one can easily get the impression that…
Beethoven’s Apollonian Beauty
Musical aesthetics in the 19th and 20th centuries was heavily preoccupied with the twin concepts of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The Apollonian stands for Apollo, the…
Why Is Beethoven So Popular?
Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven: These three composers are commonly judged the greatest in Western classical music. Few people would argue with this…
The Symphony: A Moral Vision Revealed in Music
A few days after the première of my Fourth Symphony at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall I was given an advanced copy of Lewis…