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Tales from the Stave

Documentaries

Music: Classical

Series that tracks down the stories behind the scores of well-known pieces of music

Tales From the Stave: Series 11

Tales from the Stave: Series 11: Episode 4: Beethoven's Spring Sonata

Episode 4

Episode 4: Beethoven's Spring Sonata

Series 11

Beethoven's Spring Sonata

BBC Radio 4 - Tales from the Stave, Series 11, Beethoven's Spring Sonata

Frances Fyfield examines the score of Beethoven's beautiful sonata for violin and piano.

Frances Fyfield returns to the Austrian National Library to examine the score of Beethoven's beautiful sonata for violin and piano that became known later as the 'Spring' sonata.

Although the Austrian National Library has a spectacular array of autographed classical music manuscripts by Bruckner, Brahms, Schubert, Mozart and Richard Strauss, the choice for this final programme in the latest series of Tales from the Stave comes from the Librarian Dr Thomas Leibnitz.

Beethoven's Spring Sonata of 1801 might lack the grandeur of his 7th or 9th Symphony but it was commissioned by the same Viennese banker as the former. It's not even his most taxing Violin sonata. That accolade usually goes to the Kreutzer. However the manuscript, complete with a relatively young Beethoven's grumblings about his copyist, is full of examples of detailed reworking and careful crafting that give a vivid insight into a man with far more than a sense of Sturm und Drang, gravity and drama.

Violinist Florian Zwiauer and pianist Jan Jiracek von Arnim join Dr Leibnitz as they work through the three manuscript movements of a work which was eventually published in four.
As well as trying to establish where the missing movement has gone they examine the unusually neat handwriting which makes it equally unusually clear how the composer set about his work and sought to refine it and deliver a meticulous score for the publisher.

While the opening theme was later described, and more importantly marketed by 19th century publishers, as an evocation of Spring, Florian Zwiauer believes it's the slow and reverential second movement that should have given the piece an altogether more anglophile name - the Evensong sonata.

Producer: Tom Alban.

Tales from the Stave: Series 11

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Frances Fyfield tracks down the stories behind the scores of well-known pieces of music

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Episode 4: Beethoven's Spring Sonata

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