It’s been observed (and borne out) that composers are not always the best interpreters of their own music. But when composer Péter Eötvös turned his hand to conducting Beethoven, the result was one of the most thrilling 5th Symphonies I have ever heard.

Eötvös, born in Transylvania, was aided and encouraged by Zoltán Kodály at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, and Béla Bartók was in his blood.

He continued his studies in Cologne with Bernd Alois Zimmerman. He also apprenticed with Karlheinz Stockhausen, working as Stockhausen’s engineer and copyist, and kept up his modernist credentials as a founding member of the live electronics-heavy Oeldorf Group and director and conductor of the Pierre Boulez-founded Ensemble InterContemporain.

In addition, he was drawn to the music of Renaissance madman and murderer Carlo Gesualdo and American jazz.

Eötvös composed in many genres, including experimental music for film and at least 13 operas.

To my ears, he was at least as good a conductor as he was a composer. Eötvös died yesterday at the age of 80. R.I.P.

Conducting Liszt’s “Dante Symphony”

His own “The Gliding of the Eagle in the Skies”

“Dialog mit Mozart”

Beethoven (each of the four movements posted separately)

I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj7NYoVxceo

II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0SlWenglLw

III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFvpmRbFm_0

IV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm5nuSwcMlM

Eötvös speaks