MMF Celebrates Ludwig van Beethoven
Portrait of Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
By Adam Neiman, Artistic Director
In 2020, the music of Ludwig van Beethoven (b. 1770, d. 1827) will be played across the concert halls of the globe as musicians celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of this musical giant. In the spirit of worldwide celebration, the Manchester Music Festival will perform a Beethoven work on every program of its 2020 festival season.
Possibly more than any other composer in history, Beethoven’s name is synonymous with undeniable musical greatness. Passionate, determined, powerful, epic, larger-than-life – these are common characterizations of Beethoven that describe his virtually universal appeal.
Beethoven’s achievements resonate ubiquitously in large part due to the fundamental humanity expressed by his compositions. His music is intrinsically tied with his persona, which was shaped by the life he led. Beethoven worked tirelessly to overcome personal and socio-economic barriers to ascend to the pantheon of musical immortals, in spite of setbacks that would have crushed almost any other person in his position. His defiance of convention, innate optimism, and deep inner strength seem to inspire those same qualities within the listener.
Beethoven’s early life was dominated by an overbearing and abusive father, who forced the young Ludwig to attempt to fill the unfillable shoes of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose childhood exploits were legendary among the courts of Europe. Not exactly a child prodigy like Mozart, and not really a virtuoso performer, Beethoven was widely panned as inferior as he toured the palaces of the European aristocracy, a fact likely attributable to his meager abilities as a performer as well as his rather crude manner of social interaction. His compositions, daringly original even in the early days of his career, were aesthetically foreign to the aristocrats that inundated the courts of Europe. Most of these nobles were accustomed to a certain association with music and its function: as light-hearted entertainment meant primarily as accompaniment to the clinking of champagne glasses and courtly gossip, or else to encourage solemn religious contemplation within the context of the church. What 18th-century society had not yet encountered was music designed to inspire deep thinking and to challenge the listener in a contemplation of resolute human emotion, by an individual who placed his own thoughts and feelings above those of anyone else.
Portrait of Beethoven as a young man by Carl Traugott Riedel (1769–1832)
In this regard, Beethoven was a maverick, and his music became either reviled or revered by passionate factions on opposite ends of the societal spectrum. Undeterred, and perhaps spurred on by the ideas espoused of the Age of Enlightenment (which was drawing to a close), the spirited young Beethoven went on to become a symbol of the common man, attracting a strong following among intellectuals and lay audiences in Vienna, who were innately drawn to the visceral power of his music.
Temperamental, egoistic, and self-assured, Beethoven became known as the musical enfant terrible of 18th-century Europe. He achieved notoriety and a fortune akin to a modern-day rock star, securing lavish commissions and grants without the obligation to live at court or serve in the church. This is truly extraordinary, because, up to this point in history, the place of the artist in society was that of a paid servant to the court or church at hand. Beethoven fundamentally opposed this paradigm, as servitude went against the very fiber of his being. He blazed a trail truly the first of its kind, attaining a contract-by-contract professional independence that helped redefine the artist as the philosophical and moral voice of society, bound by no extra-musical considerations other than that of his own conscience.
Confident in his identity and in the zealous enthusiasm of his core audience, Beethoven’s music became increasingly experimental, daring, and larger-scale, and with the third symphony (Eroica) he cemented his place as the greatest symphonist of all time. However, at the height of his creative powers, in 1801, Beethoven’s growing deafness finally became an incontrovertible reality, and after a disastrous attempt to give the world premiere performance as soloist in his fifth piano concerto (Emperor), he retired from the stage for good.
His tragic and heartfelt Heiligenstadt testament illuminates his thinking at that time:
Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you. From childhood on my heart and soul have been full of the tender feeling of goodwill, and I was ever inclined to accomplish great things. But, think that for six years now I have been hopelessly afflicted, made worse by senseless physicians, from year to year deceived with hopes of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady...Though born with a fiery, active temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was soon compelled to withdraw myself, to live life alone. If at times I tried to forget all this, oh how harshly was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing. Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, “Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf.” Ah, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than in others, a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed…
Deafness would have sounded the death knell for the musical career of virtually anyone else, particularly in that epoch. For Beethoven, it was a setback that he had the courage and mettle to overcome. He refocused the lens of his inner vision and continued to compose some of the most wildly original music of all time – music that, to this day, still amazes and mystifies audiences. His late quartets, the 9th symphony, the last piano works: these abstract musical essays defied all conventions (they still do, 250 years later), and they influenced nearly every composer that followed. It may be said that by losing his most important physical sense, he seemingly awakened another sense within himself, and in doing so pioneered a pathway into an alternate musical universe that would change the course of music history.
Manchester Music Festival performs Beethoven’s “Kreutzer”:
In certain ways, his later music could be described as “romantic,” in the sense of the 19th-century use of the French word roman, or story. Beethoven’s perspective through his music shifted from a kind of third-person objectivity (with a bent toward grandeur and heroism), to a first-person subjectivity (marked by increasing introspection). This highly personal manner of expression would go on to serve as the basis for the musical languages of such composers as Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and many others. Though Beethoven was fond of eschewing old forms and strictures, in his later period he became obsessed with the contrapuntal complexity of the Baroque period, incorporating full-scale fugues into his compositions. This juxtaposition of the “ancient” with the “modern” broadened his style to such a degree that, among his various periods of experimentation, there seems to be a Beethoven work that strikes a chord with everyone!
Upon his death in 1827, Beethoven bequeathed a legacy beyond his vast compositional output. His way of life and his role within society set the tone for the artists of the 19th and 20th centuries to follow. His augmentation and deconstruction of existing musical genres, such as the symphony, concerto, chamber music, and art song, continue to inform the decisions of composers to this day. He relentlessly pushed fortepiano manufacturers to create resonant instruments that could more accurately transmit the power of his piano compositions, thus inspiring a revolution in piano-making that culminated in the modern piano. Through his expansion of the orchestra, with ingenious instrumental combinations that bolstered the sonic potency of his works, he set the stage for such maximalist composers as Mahler, Wagner, Bruckner, and Strauss. His unique ability to forge beyond tonality into the abstraction of near-atonality, presaged Schoenberg, Messiaen, Scriabin, and Stravinsky. His embrace of ancient musical forms, alongside a compulsion to forge beyond the trends of the day, rendered him simultaneously a conservative and avant-garde modernist.
Yet, at the root of his music is an enduring commitment to beauty and persuasive musical argument, qualities that have helped his music remain relevant and beloved across the barriers of time and trend. He is that one composer who seems to embody the full spectrum of values prized in an artist: sensitivity, courage, creativity, intelligence, morality, prophesy, and poetic vision.
Ludwig van Beethoven performing with the Razumovsky Quartet, as depicted by artist August Borckmann. Rischgitz / Getty Images
In honor of Beethoven, arguably the greatest composer of all time, the Manchester Music Festival will perform the following works:
July 9, 2020
Piano Quartet in C Major, WoO 36 No. 3
This is very early work, full of optimism and blatant virtuosity (particularly in the piano part). You may notice Beethoven quoting themes from his Piano Sonata in C Major, Op. 2 No. 3 – study up on the piano sonata before this performance, and let’s see if you can catch all the quotations!
July 16, 2020
String Quartet in C Major, Op. 59 No. 3 “Razumovsky”
Dedicated to Count Razumovsky, this “middle period” work encapsulates the heroic Beethoven at the height of his fame and success. The power and large scale of this quartet continue to challenge even the greatest ensembles to dig deeply for the depth and precision to perform this magnificent work with aplomb.
July 23, 2020
Sonata in D Major for Piano 4-Hands, Op. 6
Duet Requiring Two Pairs of Eyeglasses for Viola & Cello, WoO 32
Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 70 No. 1 “Ghost”
The little D Major Sonata for Piano 4-Hands is a work of infectious joy, while the Duet for Viola & Cello bears an incredibly funny title (the work is even funnier!). The so-called “Ghost” Trio is probably one of the three greatest piano trios ever composed, with a middle movement that expresses Beethoven’s pathos at the carnage left behind Napoleon Bonaparte’s campaign in Vienna. Yet the trio is counterbalance by a first and third movement of spirited joy that demonstrate a hero’s optimism.
July 30, 2020
Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 70 No. 2
MMF audience will have the opportunity to hear the other trio from the Op. 70 set of two trios, having enjoyed the dichotomous “Ghost” Trio the week prior (on July 23). The E-flat trio couldn’t be more different! It is set in the same key as his “Emperor” concerto, and this trio is noble, elegant, and gentle in nature, with a wistfully humorous finale. This is mature Beethoven, more in the romantic vein of his soon-to-come late period than in the resolute middle period that precedes its composition.
August 6, 2020
Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 16
Inspired by Mozart’s wind and piano quintet of the same key, this early Beethoven masterpiece demonstrates Beethoven’s innovations with the use of wind instruments (it is scored for oboe, clarinet, French horn, bassoon, and piano), and it also demonstrates Beethoven’s humorous and boisterous outlook on life and music in general. The wind writing makes for a powerful sonic experience, while the piano writing is fleet, agile, and gracefully lighthearted.
August 10, 2020
Coriolan Overture, Op. 62
Set in the dramatic key of C minor (the same key as Beethoven’s fifth symphony), this overture was written for a tragedy by Heinrich Joseph von Collin based upon a storyline similar to Shakespeare’s tragedy of the same name. This is the dramatic, stormy, powerful, symphonic Beethoven, seemingly raising his fists at the heavens in heartfelt protest. MMF audiences will be treated to a performance of this epic work by the fine musicians of the MMF Festival Orchestra led by Maestro Michael Stern, which will open the final concert of the season.