For both new and longtime fans of Beethoven, the Center has two upcoming performances that feature the brilliant works of one of the greatest composers of all time. On October 29, Jeffrey Siegel continues his audience-favorite series Keyboard Conversations®, now in its 31st season at the Center for the Arts, with the Power and Passion of Beethoven featuring two of the composer’s favorite sonatas: the tender and lyrical Piano Sonata No. 24 “for Therese” and the stormy and violent Piano Sonata No. 23, Appassionata. Combining the beauty of dance with beloved musical masterpieces, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens also performs its program Dancing Beethoven on February 10 with the powerful Symphony No. 5 and stirring Symphony No. 7.
Learn more about Composer Ludwig van Beethoven with these fun facts!
DID YOU KNOW . . . In his early 20s, Beethoven studied under a former teacher of Mozart’s, Franz Joseph Haydn, who jokingly nicknamed his student “the grand mogul” which is the modern-day equivalent of “big shot.”
DID YOU KNOW . . . Though many would assume that Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 24 “for Therese” would have romantic implications, most scholars have determined that Beethoven did not have romantic intentions with Countess Therese von Brunsvick, the recipient of the piece. In fact, Beethoven was madly in love with Therese’s sister, Josephine Brunsvick, who unfortunately wedded another despite Beethoven’s many love letters.
DID YOU KNOW . . . The original manuscript of Piano Sonata No. 23, Appassionata remains stained with water after Beethoven’s furious exit from the estate of his patron, Prince Karl Lichnowsky, into a raging thunderstorm. After this incredible fight with Lichnowsky, Beethoven famously wrote in a letter, “Prince! What you are, you are by circumstance and birth. What I am, I am through myself. Of princes there have and will be thousands. Of Beethovens there is only one!”
DID YOU KNOW . . . Now one of the world’s most recognizable symphonies with its striking four opening notes, Symphony No. 5 is iconic but when it debuted in 1808, the public’s response was less than optimal. The piece was performed during a “marathon concert” that lasted over four hours in a Vienna concert hall, frigid during the mid-month of December. Audience members weren’t impressed by the music composed by Beethoven and performed by an orchestra that hadn’t taken enough time to rehearse. An attendee noted that they didn’t leave simply because “Beethoven was in the middle of conducting and was close at hand.”
DID YOU KNOW . . . Richard Wagner considered Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 to be the “apotheosis of dance,” claiming it could be danced to by anyone, young or old. Wagner stated, “If anyone plays the Seventh, tables and benches, cans and cups, the grandmother, the blind and the lame, aye, the children in the cradle fall to dancing.”