Updates relating to the creation of a classical cultural renaissance
A Presidents Day tribute to G. Washington and A. Lincoln both of whom loved music: Beethoven’s Kreutzer sonata for violin and piano played by a master. The Kreutzer Sonata, Beethoven’s ninth for violin and piano, is sometimes referred to as…
Today, Beethoven’s second piece of Opus 49. We are eternally grateful to Beethoven’s brother Kaspar, who arranged for the publication, against the composer’s wishes, of the two “Leichte Sonaten” Opus 49. There is hardly a piano student who has not…
Beethoven’s “Leichte Sonaten” composed in 1795-76 but not released publicly until 1805 are often studied by students. The Opus 49 “Leichte Sonaten” (light sonatas) are only known today because Kaspar van Beethoven, one of the composer’s brothers, decided on his…
Beethoven’s piano sonata Op. # 3 in E-flat major, “The Hunt,” was written in 1802. The third of the Opus 31 sonatas is affectionately known as “The Hunt”, a nickname that describes only the last movement – fast, rollicking, and full…
Beethoven’s “Tempest,” Opus 31 #2 in D-minor. We come to one of the greatest sonatas in the entire repertoire, the Opus 31 #2 in D-minor, nicknamed “The Tempest”. From the unsettling eerieness of the opening movement, to the marvelous ,…
Beethoven’s Opus 31 piano sonatas began a new path for him. Beethoven composed his trio of Opus 31 piano sonatas in 1801-1802, after he had remarked to his student Carl Czerny that he was dissatisfied with his compositions so far…
Beethoven, Franz Schubert: musical dialogue and the C-minor series. No investigation of the C-minor dialogue among composers can be complete without the astonishing C-minor sonata by Franz Schubert, whose birthday we recognized on January 31. Schubert, a native of Vienna,…
Beethoven and the C-minor dialogue. We return to Beethoven with two of his best-known sonatas in C-minor: the Pathétique and the Opus 111. Listen for the development of the theme that Bach put forward in his Musical Offering! Sonata Pathétique…
Beethoven, Mozart, Bach: A Musical Dialogue. We continue the investigation of the C-minor dialogue with Bach’s Ricercar à 6 and Mozart’s sonata K.457. When the elderly J.S. Bach visited his son who was court musician for Frederick II, the king…
Beethoven, Mozart, Bach: A musical dialogue. Any discussion of musical masters in dialogue must acknowledge the towering figure of Johann Sebastian Bach. The C-minor series we are about to explore had as its genesis Bach’s Musical Offering – a set…