Cover photo by Philippe Bout on Unsplash I’ve been hard at work on music lectures lately, with only a couple of weeks until I present Beethoven’s magnificent ninth symphony to an audience who just a few years ago had only … Continue reading The Potential for Scholarship
performed by Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich, or below by Maria João Pires and Augustin Dumay (cover image by Jez Timms) Beethoven’s fourth violin sonata dates from 1801 and is dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries, an Austrian nobleman, banker, and … Continue reading Beethoven Violin Sonata no. 4 in Am, op. 23
performed by Gidon Kremer and The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Sir Neville Marriner, with cadenzas by Alfred Schnittke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy4Giri3QY4 (cover image by Steven Wang) This is one of only a few violin concertos we’ve discussed on … Continue reading Beethoven Violin Concerto in D, op. 61
performed by Gidon Kremer and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, or below with Itzhak Perlman and the Berlin Philharmonic under Daniel Barenboim (cover image by Andrea Sonda) Well, I’ll try not to repeat myself too much, but … Continue reading Beethoven Romance for Violin and Orchestra no. 1 in G, op. 40
performed by Gidon Kremer and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, or below by Itzhak Perlman and the Berlin Philharmonic under Daniel Barenboim (cover image by Steven Wang) As we saw and (I think) discussed at the beginning of … Continue reading Beethoven Romance for Violin and Orchestra no. 2 in F, op. 50
performed by Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich https://youtu.be/oqNM8DMm3SA?t=35m14s (cover image by Rodion Kutsaev) Today’s work is the third and final installment in the op. 12 piano sonatas, completed in 1798 and dedicated to Antonio Salieri, with whom Beethoven studied for … Continue reading Beethoven Violin Sonata no. 3 in E-flat, op. 12 no. 3
performed by Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich https://youtu.be/oqNM8DMm3SA?t=19m27s (cover image by Annie Spratt) As discussed in Monday’s post, these three violin sonatas are Beethoven’s first, dating from 1798, and dedicated to Antonio Salieri, the supposed antagonist of that Mozart film. … Continue reading Beethoven Violin Sonata no. 2 in A, op. 12 no. 2
performed by Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqNM8DMm3SA (cover image by Annie Spratt) Do you think there could be anything challenging about this work? Well, you’d probably not have agreed with the critics of Beethoven’s time. As this is the … Continue reading Beethoven Violin Sonata no. 1 in D, op. 12 no. 1
performed by Gidon Kremer and the Vienna Philharmonic under Christoph von Dohnanyi, or below by Karen Gomyo and the Hague Residentie Orchestra under Brad Lubman “I wrote the piece in 1987 thinking, let me write a piece that my father … Continue reading Glass Violin Concerto no. 1
Fugue for Thought 