Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)

[Serial_Apologist]

Succinctly sums up my problem with CotW: too often the musical choices either throw insufficient light on the narrative, or are a distinct odds with it. In the case of this round of CotWs the musical performances are too obviously "old school" and the selections aimed squarely at the MOR Classic FM audience (eg Andante Favori; Septet etc).

Indeed! And as for the chronological discontinuity that has crept up to dominate this programme these days...

[kernelbogey]

Meeting an Old Friend: Beethoven Unleashed: Return to Form
Week 11 of 26: 1 June 2020

Donald Macleod is joined by guests Laura Tunbridge and Edward Dusinberre to explore Beethoven’s revolutionary return to the string quartet in the final two years of his life.

[Serial_Apologist]

Meeting an Old Friend: Beethoven Unleashed: Return to Form
Week 11 of 26: 1 June 2020

Donald Macleod is joined by guests Laura Tunbridge and Edward Dusinberre to explore Beethoven’s revolutionary return to the string quartet in the final two years of his life.

Woops - only just now remembered to tune in! Really do want to hear this week's offerings.

[kernelbogey]

I found the 'threefer' format useful today. But there was an odd moment towards the end, after Edward Dusinberre had commented on the last movement of Op 127 in some detail. When Donald asked Laura Tunbridge to comment on the movement her response was as though she had not heard ED's remarks. It made me wonder whether the contributions of the two guests had been recorded separately without hearing each other's contributions.

Other than that I found the combination of a musicologist and the leader of a quartet and interesting combination as guests.

[Serial_Apologist]

I found the 'threefer' format useful today. But there was an odd moment towards the end, after Edward Dusinberre had commented on the last movement of Op 127 in some detail. When Donald asked Laura Tunbridge to comment on the movement her response was as though she had not heard ED's remarks. It made me wonder whether the contributions of the two guests had been recorded separately without hearing each other's contributions.

Other than that I found the combination of a musicologist and the leader of a quartet and interesting combination as guests.

Great in-depth analytical comment from all present on that still (to these ears) remarkable Op 127 scherzo, in which the line's almost pre-programmed zig-zag in and out of the prevailing tonality at a couple of points leaps forward 80 years to Schoenberg's emancipation of shape over thus far permissible enharmonic progression in Beethoven's very free contrapuntal thinking in 1825 (!) - at the same time as anticipating constructivist practices in serial music and middle period Bartok.

[Bryn]

Ouch! I've been getting it wrong, all these years. I have mistakenly thought the opening movement had some merit and would be worthy of mention in a programme devoted to the work. Seems not. The real deal starts with the second movement. The first, it seems, is not worth bothering with.

[Serial_Apologist]

Ouch! I've been getting it wrong, all these years. I have mistakenly thought the opening movement had some merit and would be worthy of mention in a programme devoted to the work. Seems not. The real deal starts with the second movement. The first, it seems, is not worth bothering with.

And it's not even as if that movement would have taken up too much of the programme!

I also felt to some extent that not enough emphasis was placed on Beethoven's gift for drawing together the two leading forms of the Baroque and Classical periods, the fugue and sonata form. OK admittedly this had already been done brilliantly by others - Mozart in the finale of the "Jupiter", but the Grocer Fugue offered a great example to have gone into. In addition, while we learned how it didn't go down well with its first-night audience, little was said as to how and possibly why.

[kernelbogey]

I didn't hear all the programmes, but enjoyed most of what I heard.

I didn't have Bryn's problem -

Ouch! I've been getting it wrong, all these years. I have mistakenly thought the opening movement had some merit and would be worthy of mention in a programme devoted to the work. Seems not. The real deal starts with the second movement. The first, it seems, is not worth bothering with.

- it's not a concert performance, after all.

I had mixed feelings about the programmes of the week overall. I enjoyed the contributions of Laura Tunbridge and Edward Dusinberre, but somehow the overall week didn't work for me. I kind of got the point of playing Coriolnus Ov, and the Piano Sonata movement.... and yet, and yet.

BTW does anyone know the books referred to written by Laura Tunbridge and Edward Dusinberre? The former a biography I gathered, the latter on the LvB quartets.

[Serial_Apologist]

I didn't hear all the programmes, but enjoyed most of what I heard.

I didn't have Bryn's problem -



- it's not a concert performance, after all.

I had mixed feelings about the programmes of the week overall. I enjoyed the contributions of Laura Tunbridge and Edward Dusinberre, but somehow the overall week didn't work for me. I kind of got the point of playing Coriolnus Ov, and the Piano Sonata movement.... and yet, and yet.

BTW does anyone know the books referred to written by Laura Tunbridge and Edward Dusinberre? The former a biography I gathered, the latter on the LvB quartets.

I felt similarly - my fear having already been that Radio 3 was resorting to barrel bottom scraping to fulfil an overstretched Beethoven brief. That said, the late quartet performances chosen were wonderful - and we did get to hear the first movement of OP 130 eventually - in the last programme - and in a performance I preferred to that by my Amadeus, who take it a bit too fast.

[kernelbogey]

COTW would be a lesser programme without the saving presence of Donald. These programmes jumped about all over the place, and in the next series, in a week, we're back to the Eroica, Napoleon and the idea of greatness. I began the series with enthusiasm, but now I hae' me doots.

[Serial_Apologist]

COTW would be a lesser programme without the saving presence of Donald. These programmes jumped about all over the place, and in the next series, in a week, we're back to the Eroica, Napoleon and the idea of greatness. I began the series with enthusiasm, but now I hae' me doots.

Anti-chronology has been a feature of COTW for some time - you get a portrait part drawn, part painted, then drawn and painted to completion at the end of the week, if you're lucky. It's fine for those artists who specialise in revealing images bit by unsuspecting bit, and who used to be featured on TV drawing a figure by starting with one ear, then filling the blank canvas in arbitrary order, adding tie, shoes, the other ear and an eyebrow, until only eventually you can make out the subject; it may work for visuals, but not verbal descriptions when salient details are forgotten from one programme to a subsequent one, frustratingly breaking up any composite idea of evolution in time and context unless one takes ones own notes, which should hardly be necessary.

I have an idea Donald prepares his own scripts. Would that be right? I think we've had this subject before on the forum.

[kernelbogey]

Anti-chronology has been a feature of COTW for some time - you get a portrait part drawn, part painted, then drawn and painted to completion at the end of the week, if you're lucky. It's fine for those artists who specialise in revealing images bit by unsuspecting bit, and who used to be featured on TV drawing a figure by starting with one ear, then filling the blank canvas in arbitrary order, adding tie, shoes, the other ear and an eyebrow, until only eventually you can make out the subject; it may work for visuals, but not verbal descriptions when salient details are forgotten from one programme to a subsequent one, frustratingly breaking up any composite idea of evolution in time and context unless one takes ones own notes, which should hardly be necessary.

I have an idea Donald prepares his own scripts. Would that be right? I think we've had this subject before on the forum.

Agree, SA. Chronolgy seems extra important to me in a 26-week series. I have always trusted DM, and I didn't find that having both Laura Tunbridge and Edward Dusinberre were essential. They both said interesting things but I think one or the other with DM would have been more rather than less. I wonder if there is hand on high discouraging single-voice presentation? The way the week bobbed about in time was a distraction. And Bryn finally got his missing opening movment at the end of the week.


I don't know if DM writes his own scripts, but I suspect so, backed by a good team of researchers.

[kernelbogey]

Week 12 of 26 w/c15.6.20
Leonore

Beethoven struggles to put on his first-ever opera as the French army advances relentlessly on Vienna.

This week, Donald Macleod follows Ludwig van Beethoven through the years of 1804-1806; the beginning of what many commentators have called his ‘heroic’ phase. Beethoven had put behind him the profound psychological crisis, triggered by his failing hearing, and now throws himself into his composing with renewed energy and strength of spirit. However, that same passionate nature also leads to frequent conflicts.

[LMcD]

The delectable Georgia Mann reckons that Beethoven would have been a disaster in the kitchen. This view may be correct because it's a matter of record that, while on a day trip to Ravenna, he ordered some pasta from a local restaurant. When he discovered that it had been delivered to the apartment on the floor below, recognizing that his Italian was not good enough to upbraid the owner of the restaurant, he sat down at the piano and composed a short piece for piano, which was given the opus number 129 and inevitably became known as Rage Over Lost Penne.

[kernelbogey]

The delectable Georgia Mann reckons that Beethoven would have been a disaster in the kitchen. This view may be correct because it's a matter of record that, while on a day trip to Ravenna, he ordered some pasta from a local restaurant. When he discovered that it had been delivered to the apartment on the floor below, recognizing that his Italian was not good enough to upbraid the owner of the restaurant, he sat down at the piano and composed a short piece for piano, which was given the opus number 129 and inevitably became known as Rage Over Lost Penne.