Composer of the Week: Beethoven: Making a Man (1770-1792)

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Kate Molleson

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Beethoven Unleashed: Making a Man (1770-1792): A schooling of sorts

Beethoven Unleashed red and blue stripes

A schooling of sorts

Beethoven Unleashed: Making a Man (1770-1792)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Beethoven Unleashed: Making a Man (1770-1792), A schooling of sorts

Donald Macleod looks at how Beethoven's teachers left their mark on the young composer.

Donald Macleod looks at how Beethoven's haphazard education helped mould him for adult life.

Donald Macleod looks at how Beethoven’s haphazard education helped mould him for adult life. 

Beethoven was a difficult student who often preferred to educate himself than take instruction. Nevertheless many of his early teachers left a lasting influence. This week, Donald Macleod’s focus is on Beethoven’s childhood and teenage years, as he looks for clues in the composer’s early life that point towards the great man he would become.

All through 2020, Donald Macleod takes an unprecedented deep dive into the compelling story and extraordinary music of Ludwig van Beethoven. In this uniquely ambitious series, told across 125 episodes of Composer of the Week, Donald puts us inside Beethoven’s world and explores his hopes, struggles and perseverance in all the colourful detail this amazing narrative deserves. Alongside this in-depth biography, Donald will also be meeting and talking to Beethoven enthusiasts and experts from across the world to discover how his music continues to speak to us in the twenty-first century. Through story and sound, the series builds into a vivid new portrait of this composer, born 250 years ago this year, who made art that changed how people saw themselves and understood the world.

String Quartet No 13 in Bb, Op 130 (2nd movement)
Elias Quartet

Piano Sonata No 2, Op 2 No 2 (1st and 2nd movements)
Mieczysław Horszowski, piano

Symphony No 4 (4th movement)
BBC Philharmonic
Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

Sonata for cello and piano, Op 102 No 1 (2nd and 3rd movements)
Nicolas Altstaedt, cello
Jose Gallardo, piano

Piano Quartet, WoO 36 No 3
New Zealand Piano Quartet


Produced by Chris Taylor for BBC Wales

Composer of the Week: Beethoven Unleashed: Making a Man (1770-1792)

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod looks at Beethoven's humble beginnings as the child of a court musician.

This week, Donald Macleod's focus is on Beethoven's childhood and teenage years, as he looks for clues in the composer's early life that point towards the great man he would become.

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