Beethoven

Remembering Kazuyoshi Akiyama

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Kazuyoshi Akiyama, the renowned Japanese conductor, passed away last Sunday, January 26. He was 84. Akiyama made his debut with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra in 1964. The collaboration was so successful that, within two months, he was given the dual posts of music director and permanent conductor. He went on to serve as assistant conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1968-1969), and music director of the American Symphony Orchestra (1973-1978). His reputation …

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Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major: Impressions and Reveries

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Composed during the summer of 1816, the Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101 is the first of Beethoven’s five “late period” piano sonatas. It is music filled with mystery and divine revelation. Isolated from the world as a result of nearly total hearing loss, Beethoven, in his final years, conceived of music unlike anything which came before. Gone is the classical charm, and ferocious revolutionary struggle of the earlier periods. …

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Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: Herbert Blomstedt and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

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Last Thursday, July 11, renowned Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt celebrated his 97th birthday. Sidelined by a serious fall in December of 2023, Blomstedt resumed his conducting schedule last April; and with numerous upcoming engagements, centered in Leipzig, Dresden, and Paris, he shows no signs of slowing down. This year, in celebration of Blomstedt’s birthday, the Bamberg Symphony played I denna ljuva sommartid, a Swedish summer psalm which holds significance for the conductor. …

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Martha Argerich Plays Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major

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The Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 19 is music of the youthful Beethoven. Composed between 1787 and 1789, it predated the First Concerto, but was published out of sequence. Filled with charm and exuberance, it follows the model of Mozart. The acclaimed pianist, Martha Argerich is now an octogenarian, yet her performance of this music sparkles with youthful vitality. (Amazingly, she was already performing Beethoven Concerti at the age of 8, as …

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Remembering Maurizio Pollini

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Maurizio Pollini, the acclaimed Italian pianist whose career spanned more than six decades, passed away on March 23 in a clinic in his native Milan. He was 82. La Scala, the opera house where Pollini frequently performed,  hailed the Grammy-winning pianist as “one of the great musicians of our time and a fundamental reference in the artistic life of the theater for over 50 years.” Pollini began performing publicly at age 11, …

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Beethoven’s Egmont Overture: The Heroic Struggle for Liberty

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In 1809, Beethoven received a commission to compose incidental music for the belated Vienna premiere of Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Egmont. The tragic play, set in five acts, freely interpreted the heroic exploits of the sixteenth century Count Egmont, a Dutch politician and soldier who championed the liberation of the Netherlands from the autocratic rule of imperial Spain. As a consequence of his actions, Egmont was imprisoned and beheaded in 1568. Yet, his martyrdom …

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Beethoven’s “King Stephen” Overture: A Hungarian Celebration

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In 1811, Beethoven received a commission to compose incidental music for two Hungarian-themed plays by August von Kotzebue, King Stephen and The Ruins of Athens. The plays were written to commemorate the opening of a magnificent new theater in the Hungarian city of Pest on the banks of the Danube (now the eastern part of unified Budapest). The theater’s construction was funded by Franz I, the last Holy Roman Emperor and the …

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