Beethoven’s Farewell to the Piano
I remember the first time I learned Beethoven’s Farewell to the Piano, a simple, two-part, four-page piece in the first volume of a piano series called The…
I remember the first time I learned Beethoven’s Farewell to the Piano, a simple, two-part, four-page piece in the first volume of a piano series called The…
The violin concerto as a form of music has endured for some 300 years and remains, alongside the piano concerto, the most popular type of concerto played…
Few composers command an image as striking as Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) does in the contemporary imagination. Generations of lovers of classical music grew up thinking of…
In the canon of Ludwig van Beethoven’s works, the Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major, Opus 60, stands as a singularly neglected and underrated masterpiece. Many would…
There are many things that have been said about Beethoven and his music by expert biographers, classical music aficionados, and trained musicians who know the composer and…
Those who have read previous essays of mine about music and composers know that I enjoy paying tribute to the lesser-known and unjustly neglected. Such undoubtedly is…
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…
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…
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…
“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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…