WKXL - New Hampshire Talk Radio
Artful Living Presents | The Best of Beethoven
(upbeat music) - Good morning, everybody. This is Jane Kormier, WKXL, New HampshireTalkRadio.com. Our phone living here today, we have a great segment for you. We're going to continue with our little theme of great, great composers. And if you were with us last time, we talked about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and this week we are going to talk about Ludwig van Beethoven, but before we do that, I want to shout out to Avelock Farm Music Institute, as they are a supporter of artful living in WKXL, and for those of you that might not know, Avelock is in Bosquein, and they do weekly concerts that are free to the public that really bring a world high quality musicians right here to Little Bosquein, very close, of course, to Concord. So take advantage, Avelock Farm Music Institute. Do not miss it, and I'm sure that there are concerts this weekend and next weekend, right through the fall. All right, so we're going to get started with Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born in 1770 and died in 1827. And again, probably one of the top five composers that ever existed, that ever lived, because he really did branch, he sort of branched the transition from the classical period to the romantic period. Our first selection that we're going to play is an earlier piece by Beethoven. It's his first symphony, and this symphony is important because, you know, you really can't hear, if you listen closely, the Mozart effect, if you will, coming in and out of this piece. You can hear how Joseph Haydn was his teacher, was a teacher of Beethoven, but we can hear Mozart's influence as well, the characteristics that come in the work. We want to do the first movement, a part of the first movement, of Beethoven's first symphony, which he published, I believe in 1801. No, 1800, the premiere took place in Vienna. So we had a pretty, a 31 year old composer premiering symphony number one, Beethoven. (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) So that's actually the beautiful, at least by Beethoven, and all of the selections that you've heard were somewhat in his first period. This next selection that you will hear is considered to be the marking for the middle period of Beethoven's musical career. This is the Eroica Symphony, very famous number three. And it's Eroica is just German for heroic. And this expanded the symphony form. What the symphonies would be for the next two centuries was built on what the symphony number three offered to music and to music listeners. This production, or this I should say the selection, is conducted by Herbert von Karyen. So this is the Eroica Symphony. (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) Alright, so that was just a little bit of the Eroica Symphony Beethoven's Symphony number three. And it was a really wonderful piece of music which changed the history of symphony as we knew it going on for 200 years. So it was really an important part of the beginning of Mozart's true changing of the form in classical music. So WKXL 1450am 103.9 FM conquered in 101.9 FM in Manchester, New HampshireTalkRadio.com. Art for Living will be right back with some more fabulous Beethoven. (music) Welcome back, Jane Cormier, your host here on Artful Living, WKXL, New HampshireTalkRadio.com. We are having a day of Beethoven last episode of Artful Living. We had Mozart and today it's all about Ludwig von Beethoven. And if you're just joining us today, you are going to be in time to hear a really wonderful piece, Beethoven's violin concerto, which at the time that it was played 1808 was not a hit. And in fact, really didn't do a whole lot until its revival in around 1844, well after Beethoven had passed. So this is actually the Berlin Ferromonic who was playing this 1992 with the great legendary violinist, Isaac Pelman. And any time we can listen to Isaac Pelman is a time we should take advantage of. So we're going to go right to it. And this is Beethoven's violin concerto. (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) (music) So yes, that is the just amazing violin planning of Isaac Pelman, of the famous violin concerto by Beethoven. And wanted to just before we end on our next segment with two of the great cornerstone pieces Beethoven wrote, just let the folks that are hearing this today. Remember that this music that you're hearing was by a composer that had started to lose his hearing in the mid-20s when he was in his mid-20s. And it was a very slow progression, but by the time you're hearing these pieces that we're playing around 1800 and on, there was a substantial loss of hearing. And he still continued to write some of his most complex and important works, despite the fact that his hearing was substantially, you know, gone or going. And when you consider the level of this work with that impediment, it just sort of blows your mind to think that we have been given these musical gifts, despite the fact that Beethoven was working through that very difficult challenge for any musician, for anyone really, but especially for a musician. Remember too that this was a time when the people valued listening and slowing down and absorbing what was around them, a time when we weren't rushing off with a thousand things that we were actually really plugged in to what we were listening to and what we were seeing. So this 1800s period, the classical period of art and music was a time when people really, really, really thought music and visual art was a large part of their culture and they incorporated it into their lives. All right, the next segment's going to be great, we're going to have Beethoven's fifth and ninth symphony excerpt, so stay right where you are, New HampshireTalkRadio.com, Art for Living, Jane, call me or your host, we will be right back. [Music] Hello there, Jane, call me or your host here on Art for Living and welcome if you're just joining us, WKXL 1450am 103.9 FM Concord and 101.9 FM in Manchester. Today is all about Beethoven, Beethoven's great music, a little factual stuff thrown in and this last segment we are going to visit Beethoven's fifth symphony, a symphony that took him four years to complete 1804-1808 and he premiered it at the Teotron de Veen in Vienna on 1808. All right, and of course it has that famous four note motif and the fifth symphony is a cornerstone of Western music. It was one of, and still is, one of the most popular and important symphonies ever written, so let's hear a little bit of Beethoven's fifth symphony. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] All right, so there we go. The Beethoven's fifth symphony, everybody knows that one, you've heard it in so many commercials and also in pop music has sort of revisited that little theme. Our last piece that we're going to end this episode of Art for Living is the ninth symphony of Beethoven and this was written between 1822 and 1824. This was a mammoth work. It was a choral symphony. It was the first choral symphony that was written and it is regarded by many critics and musicologists as the masterpiece of symphonic work for classical music, Western classical music. It really just changed everything and even at the premiere was an incredible hit. The people at that premiere performance understood what it was they were hearing and it's quite a story because by the time this piece was played, Beethoven was almost completely deaf and yet was still at the podium conducting this piece. So that's quite a thing, right? It was based on a poem written by Frederick Schiller on De Freude, which was owed to joy. And in this piece we have a full chorus and a soloist that sing the choral portion. We're going to hear some of that right now. Beethoven's symphony, number nine in D minor. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] There you go. There is a good little section, the choral symphonies, number nine, Beethoven, owed to joy on De Freude. And just to let you know, at the end of that wonderful symphony, the audience knew that Beethoven could not hear them. And they acclaimed him through standing ovations five times, handkerchiefs, hats, hands all raised so that Beethoven could hear, if he couldn't hear the applause, could at least see the ovation. Testimony to the spirit of man. Ludwig van Beethoven. Jane Comieur here. Thank you for joining us today on Art for Living, WKXL1450AM, 103.9 FM Cockard, and 101.9 FM in Manchester. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. [Music]