Composer of the Week: Beethoven: Creating the Myth

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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: Creating the Myth: 'Only in the world of ideals'

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'Only in the world of ideals'

Beethoven Unleashed: Creating the Myth

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Beethoven Unleashed: Creating the Myth, 'Only in the world of ideals'

Donald Macleod explores Beethoven through the years 1810-1812.

Beethoven is courting, with marriage on his mind. He might be slowing up creatively, but reviews and images of the composer begin to build up a romantic mythology of the composer.

Beethoven is courting and has marriage on the mind. He might be slowing up creatively, but reviews and images of the composer begin to build up a romantic mythology of the composer.

This week, Donald Macleod explores Ludwig van Beethoven’s life through the years of 1810-1812. This was a period of great financial hardship for all of Vienna in the aftermath of Napoleon’s second occupation of the city. Beethoven struggled through this economic depression, composing his Seventh and Eighth Symphonies with little hope of getting performances. The financial crisis wasn’t the only thing to afflict the composer either; alongside an increase in physical ailments, Beethoven also suffered a great emotional crisis which culminated in the letter he wrote to his unnamed ‘Immortal Beloved’.

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.

String Quartet No 10 in E flat major, Op 74 “Harp” (4th movement)
Endellion Quartet

Bagatelle in A minor, WoO 59 “Für Elise”
Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano

Symphony No 5 in C minor, Op 67 -(2nd movement)
Vienna Philharmonic
Carlos Kleiber, conductor

String Quartet No 11 in F minor, Op 95
Busch Quartet

Symphony No 7 in A major, Op 92 (4th movement)
Wiener Philharmoniker
Rafael Kubelik, conductor


Producer: Sam Phillips

Composer of the Week: Beethoven Unleashed: Creating the Myth

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 Ludwig van Beethoven's life through the years 1810-1812.

Donald Macleod explores Ludwig van Beethoven's life through the years 1810-1812, a period of great financial hardship in the aftermath of Napoleon's second occupation of Vienna.

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