Composer of the Week: Beethoven: Conversations with Friends

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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: Conversations with Friends: Chamber music turns pro

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Chamber music turns pro

Beethoven Unleashed: Conversations with Friends

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Beethoven Unleashed: Conversations with Friends, Chamber music turns pro

Donald Macleod discusses how Beethoven's work ended up turning chamber music professional.

Cellist Raphael Wallfisch and violinist Sara Bitlloch join Donald Macleod to discuss how Beethoven's work had the effect of turning chamber music professional.

This week cellist Raphael Wallfisch and violinist Sara Bitlloch join Donald Macleod to talk about Beethoven’s early chamber music from 1795 to 1811, including beloved works such as the ‘Razumovsky’ quartets, the ‘Kreutzer’ violin sonata, and the ‘Ghost’ and ‘Archduke’ piano trios.

Today they look at how Beethoven’s music, as it developed and became more complex, had the effect of turning chamber music professional: what he was writing was too challenging for amateur players, and often too serious for the salon.

We hear great music from the Razumovsky String Quartets, the Kreutzer Violin Sonata, the Septet and the Kakadu Variations.

The ‘Razumovskys’ were composed between April and November of 1806, at the end of what was an astonishingly productive three years of Beethoven’s life, when he produced a series of radically different masterpieces.

Piano Trio Op 121a, “Kakadu Variations” 
Florestan Trio

String Quartet in F major No 7, Op 59 (“Razumovsky”) (4th movement) 
Takács Quartet

Violin Sonata in A major No. 9 Op 47 ("Kreutzer") (1st movement) 
Itzhak Perlman, violin
Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano

Septet in E flat major for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and double bass Op 20 (2nd movement)
Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble


Produced by Iain Chambers for BBC Wales

Composer of the Week: Beethoven Unleashed: Conversations with Friends

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 describes how Beethoven forged a distinctive new style of chamber music.

Cellist Raphael Wallfisch and violinist Sara Bitlloch join Donald Macleod to talk about Beethoven's early chamber music, from 1795 to 1811.

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