Beethoven
Jonathan Biss: The sadness and euphoria of playing to an empty room
My November was bookended by two characteristic displays of grace. I ushered it in by falling on all fours while…
Enter the parallel universe that is the Lucerne Festival
There wasn’t going to be a Lucerne Festival this year. The annual month-long squillion-dollar international beano got cancelled, along with…
Beethoven 32 piano sonatas were his musical laboratory – here are the best recordings
If you want to understand Beethoven, listen to his piano sonatas. Without them, you’ll never grasp how the same man…
If your instinct is to undermine Beethoven, you’re directing the wrong opera: Fidelio reviewed
‘People may say I can’t sing,’ said the soprano Florence Foster Jenkins, ‘but no one can ever say I didn’t…
Inspired programming and a proper celebration: Barbican's Beethoven Weekender reviewed
Beethoven wears a feather boa and pink shades. He wrangles an electric guitar. A red lightning flash streaks across that…
This year, I’m performing all 32 of Beethoven’s sonatas. Here’s why
For the past several decades, little in my life as a professional pianist has been as constant as my relationship…
Why did the Soviets not want us to know about the pianist Maria Grinberg?
Only four women pianists have recorded complete cycles of the Beethoven piano sonatas: Maria Grinberg, Annie Fischer, H. J. Lim…
Is women’s football really that popular?
Ode to all sorts Brexit party MPs were likened to Nazis for turning their backs on a recital of ‘Ode to…
Igor Levit’s Goldbergs were transcendental
Igor Levit has rapidly achieved cult status, as he certainly deserves. He has already reached the stage where he can…
Anderszewski went at Beethoven’s Diabellis with a nail gun
Are Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations really ‘the greatest of all piano works’, as Alfred Brendel claims? It’s hardly what you would…
Dudamel’s Amériques made The Rite of Spring sound like Einaudi
Apparently it’s called ‘expectation management’. Pollux, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s new work for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, takes its name from…
Remembering one of the best – and bitchiest – pianists who ever lived
I’m unlucky with Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata. Twice in the past year I’ve bolted for the exit as soon the pianist…
The sound of no hands clapping
‘We’re going to live for ever!’ declares Robert Powell as Gustav Mahler at the end of Ken Russell’s 1974 biopic.…
Beethoven: Missa solemnis
When you first encounter it, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis can sound like the Ninth Symphony with more singing but no tunes.…
Letters
Bugs bite back Sir: Matthew Parris is quite right to say that we Leavers would prefer independence in reduced circumstances…
Dark night of the soul
As bombs fall everywhere in Syria and IS fighters destroy Palmyra, a musicologist in Vienna lies awake all night thinking…
My deafness has become an impediment to domestic harmony
Most people, when asked if they would rather be deaf or blind, say they would rather be deaf. I would…
Those ancient Greeks were bores — but things are looking up
Thick snow is falling hard and heavy, muffling sounds and turning the picturesque village postcard beautiful. I am lying in…
Was Beethoven influenced by yoga?
How many digital radios have you bought over the years? How many are still working? Of the four I used…
My Schubert marathon
Just how much fun is it listening to all 650 of Schubert’s songs, asks Damian Thompson
‘Ashtray’ Annie Fischer was a piano giant. Why didn’t more people realise this?
This year marks the centenary of a pianist whom London orchestral players nicknamed ‘Ashtray Annie’. Only at the keyboard did…
Why it's good to remember that Bach could be a tedious old windbag
When I was first learning about classical music, 50 years ago, the scene was more streamlined than it is now.…
How Claudio Abbado bridged old and new
Not long ago the great conductors of classical music were general practitioners. They expected to give satisfactory interpretations of music…
The state of opera today (it's not good)
I’ve been hoping that in this, the last of my weekly columns on opera, I would be able to strike…
Music to listen to when you've broken up with a precious friend
Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata is thrilling and brain-twisting. Its nickname derives from the fact that it was published as a sonata…
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