I’m staring at a pile of musical birthday gifts for Claudio Monteverdi, Michael Balfe, Nikolai Tcherepnin, Lars-Erik Larsson, Arthur Berger, and John Lanchbery. That’s an awful lot of wrapping for any classical music host. I hope you’ll be on hand to reap the benefits, as I’ll be jumping out of a cake repeatedly from 4 to 6 p.m. EDT.

Then, at the end of a long day of picking scotch tape off my fingers, there really is only one remedy. On this week’s “Music from Marlboro,” it will be an all-Beethoven affair.

Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat major, Op. 97, known as the “Archduke,” was one of 14 works the composer wrote for his friend and patron Archduke Rudolf of Austria. Rudolf, an amateur pianist, was the youngest child of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II.

Beethoven himself appeared at the keyboard at the work’s premiere in 1814. His encroaching deafness so diminished his former prowess as a performer that he retired from concertizing after a repeat performance a few weeks later. The violinist and composer Louis Spohr summed up the discomfiture and pity felt by those in attendance, by stating, “I am deeply saddened by so hard a fate.”

The music remains unbowed. Today, the “Archduke” Trio is as noble and inspiring as ever.

We’ll hear it performed at the 2006 Marlboro Music Festival by pianist and Marlboro co-artistic director Mitsuko Uchida, violinist Soovin Kim, and cellist David Soyer of the legendary Guarneri Quartet.

Also on the program will be a performance of Beethoven’s “Three Marches for Piano Four Hands,” a remarkable collaboration between an 87 year-old Mieczyslaw Horszowski and an 18 year-old Cecile Licad.

There are plenty of gifted composers, but it’s hard to beat Beethoven. Beethoven takes the cake, on the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

Beethoven, ready to celebrate his unbirthday