Composer of the Week: Beethoven: New Pathways

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Composer of the Week - Brand

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: New Pathways: Theatrical Diversions

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Theatrical Diversions

Beethoven Unleashed: New Pathways

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Beethoven Unleashed: New Pathways, Theatrical Diversions

Beethoven seizes an opportunity to reach a new audience. Presented by Donald Macleod.

Beethoven seizes an opportunity to put his music before a wider public and escape his endless obligations to Vienna's aristocratic patrons. Presented by Donald Macleod.

Beethoven watches with interest as Vienna’s newly built venue, the Theater and der Wien, begins to draw eager crowds to its programme of plays, opera and musical concerts.  He decides it’s the perfect place to put his own music before a wider public.

All this week, Donald Macleod traces Beethoven’s story through the momentous years of 1802 and 1803. It was a time that saw remarkable developments in Beethoven’s creativity as he pursued a self-declared ‘new path’ for his music. He undertook his most ambitious works yet, pouring his whole self into his art. At the same time his personal life was reaching a crisis point that would plunge him to the darkest depths of despair and threaten to ruin all his carefully laid plans for the future.  

Composer of the Week is returning to the story of Beethoven’s life and music throughout 2020. Part of Radio 3’s Beethoven Unleashed season marking the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth.

March  (Fidelio, Act 1)
Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Lucerne Festival Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abbado

Romance for violin and orchestra No 1, Op 40
Chloë Hanslip, violin
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Anja Bihlmaier

5 Variations on “Rule Britannia” WoO 79
Gianluca Cascioli, piano

Christ on the Mount of Olives (extract)
Maria Venuti, soprano (Seraph)
Keith Lewis, tenor (Jesus)
Michel Brodard, bass (Petrus)
Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart
Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, conducted by Helmuth Rilling

Symphony No.3 ‘Eroica’, IV. Finale
BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Thierry Fischer

Composer of the Week: Beethoven Unleashed: New Pathways

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 traces Beethoven's story through the momentous years of 1802 and 1803.

Donald Macleod traces Beethoven's story through the momentous years of 1802 and 1803 - a time that saw remarkable developments in Beethoven's creativity as he pursued a 'new path'.

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