Composer of the Week: Beethoven: Creating the Myth

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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: Creating the Myth: Keep Calm and Carry On

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Keep Calm and Carry On

Beethoven Unleashed: Creating the Myth

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Beethoven Unleashed: Creating the Myth, Keep Calm and Carry On

Donald Macleod explores Beethoven through the years 1810-1812.

Beethoven keeps writing new music, but with inflation in Vienna running wild, can anyone afford to pay him for his work?

In the face of enormous challenges Beethoven keeps writing new music but, with inflation in Vienna running wild, who can afford to pay him for his work? The composer is still suffering from poor health and on the advice of doctors travels to the spa at Teplitz to recover.

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.
 
To the Blackbird; The Dairy House (26 Welsh Songs, WoO 155)
Lynne Dawson, soprano
Alida Schat, violin
Jaap ter Linden, cello
Bart van Oort, piano

Sonata No 26 in E flat major, Op 81a “Les Adieux” (2nd and 3rd movements)
Paul Lewis, piano

Incidental Music to King Stephen, Op 117 (Overture & Victory March)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Anja Bihlmaier, conductor

Christ on the Mount of Olives, Op 85 (Final Trio and Choruses)
Keith Lewis,tenor
Maria Venuti, soprano
Michel Brodard, bass
Gächinger Kantorei
Bach-Collegium Stuttgart
Helmut Rilling, conductor

Symphony No 7 in A major, Op 92 (3rd movement)
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Riccardo Chailly, 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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