Composer of the Week: Beethoven: Conversations with Friends

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

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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: A return to melody

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A return to melody

Beethoven Unleashed: Conversations with Friends

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Beethoven Unleashed: Conversations with Friends, A return to melody

Donald Macleod explores Beethoven's return to lyrical melody in the years around 1800.

Cellist Raphael Wallfisch and violinist Sara Bitlloch join Donald Macleod to talk about Beethoven's return to lyrical melody in the years around 1800.

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.

Beethoven’s composing career is generally divided into three phases: the Early Period, up to 1802; the compositions that make up his Middle Period, the years from 1803 to 1814; and lastly the extraordinary, ambitious works composed between then and his death. 

Today we look at Beethoven’s return to lyrical melody in the years around 1800, and hear music including the ‘Harp’ Quartet, the Opus 70 Piano Trio, the third “Razumovsky” String Quartet, and the “Spring” Violin Sonata, containing one of the most famous melodies in Beethoven’s chamber music output.

String Quartet in C major Op 59 No 3 (“Razumovsky”) (1st movement) 
Takács Quartet

Piano Trio No 5 in D major Op 70 No 1 ("Ghost") (2nd movement) 
Andreas Staier fortepiano
Daniel Sepec, violin
Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello 

Violin Sonata No 5 in F major Op 24 ("Spring") (1st and 4th movements) 
Isabelle Faust, violin 
Alexander Melnikov, piano

String Quartet in E flat Op 74 (“Harp”) (1st movement) 
Lindsay Quartet
 

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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