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Sunday, February 17, 2013

Sunday Morning in the Church of Beethoven

My weekly feature, this time with the great Paul Lewis and the slow movement of piano concerto no. 3.   And my Beethoven book, with Kerry Candaele.

1 comment:

Laurence Glavin said...

December 5th was not only the date of the passing of Dave brubeck, but the anniversary of the passing or Mozart. The most mind-boggling conjecture one could make about music: what if Mozart had lived another 20 years, thus setting up a COMPETITION between him and Beethoven? Would Beethoven have composed sonatas and concertos and symphonies as he did in reality, thus causing Mozart to venture into the music realms that the younger genius would have already explored? Imagine a Beethoven Fifth Symphony and a Mozart 45th Symphony! Perhaps Mozart would have said "deaf though he may be and therefore no competitor to me as a performer, his composing chops in sonata form and beyond are unbelievable; I know, I'll specialize in opera (bad news for Rossini)" Well, that was not to be, and this particular concerto is in a sense Beethoven's fealty to Mozart (as many of his fugues and the "Diabelli Variations" were fealty to J.S. Bach) as he bids farewell to the 18th century "gentility" and signals the new direction he would then follow.