Happy birthday, Beethoven!
Well, here we are. Your 250th birthday – what would have been the biggest celebration in classical music (at least until 2027, the 200th anniversary of your death) – and we’re all sitting at home with our records. That’s okay. I’ve got plenty of good ones. Anyone care to share any of their favorites?
Here’s a montage of 42 conductors and 1 pianist, performing the most famous opening in all of Western music. It really gives a sense of what different interpreters can bring to a piece of music (also, in Barenboim’s case, the effect of an unstifled sneeze). Performance matters!
Here’s one from 2007 that I find quite compelling, led by the Hungarian composer Péter Eötvös.
My candidate for craziest stick technique:
Perhaps more instructive is this traversal by line-riding bikes:
Clearly, this symphony is bulletproof.
Beethoven as he appeared in 1804-05, while he was at work on his “Fifth”