Composer of the Week: Beethoven: In His Own Words

Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Migrated podcast image for: Composer Of The Week

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: In His Own Words: Unlucky in Love

Beethoven Unleashed: In His Own Words

Unlucky in Love

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Beethoven Unleashed: In His Own Words, Unlucky in Love

Donald Macleod explores Beethoven's love letters, with excerpts read by Adrian Lester.

Donald Macleod explores Beethoven's letters. Read by Adrian Lester, today Beethoven's flirting gets him into trouble. He falls deeply in love and suffers the misery of rejection.

Donald Macleod explores Beethoven's varied and rich correspondence.  Read by Adrian Lester, in today's excerpts from the composer's letters we find that Beethoven's flirting has got him into trouble; he falls deeply in love and suffers the misery of rejection on more than one occasion. 

More than 1,770 of Beethoven's letters still survive and, this week, Donald Macleod delves into five different areas of this extensive archive. Today he's looking at some of Beethoven's romantic life through the letters he wrote.  According to his close friend Franz Wegeler, "Beethoven was always in love," and sometimes made conquests, "that an Adonis would have found difficult, if not impossible." All too frequently Beethoven appears to have punched above his weight, falling in love with a succession of women who were socially unattainable, his feelings destined to be crushed. One of his most deep and painful affairs was with the Countess Josephine Deym, but we also find him flirting with the very talented, and married pianist Marie Bigot, sprucing himself up to attract one of his piano pupils, gossiping with the fascinating artist Bettina Brentano, and writing perhaps his most heartfelt words to a mystery woman who remains to this day known only as the Immortal Beloved..

Music includes: 

Piano Sonata in C sharp minor, Op 27 No 2
II: Allegretto 
Paul Lewis, piano 

An die Hoffnung, Op 32 
John Mark Ainsley, tenor 
Iain Burnside, piano 

Piano Sonata No 23 in F minor, Op 57 (Appassionata) 
III: Allegro ma non troppo
Ingrid Fliter, piano 

Bagatelle in A minor, WoO 59 
Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano 

An die Ferne Geliebte 
James Gilchrist, tenor 
Anna Tilbrook, piano

Composer of the Week: Beethoven Unleashed: In His Own Words

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 explores Beethoven's letters with excerpts read by Adrian Lester.

More than 1,770 of Beethoven's letters still survive. Donald Macleod delves into five different areas of this extensive collection, with excerpts read by Adrian Lester.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Composer of the Week

Beethoven Unleashed: In His Own Words

Unlucky in Love

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3