成人快手

Donald Macleod explores the spiritual and the comedic in Beethoven's vocal music with conductor Simone Young and pianist Iain Burnside.

Beethoven was born into a family of singers. His grandfather Ludwig and his father Johann were both remarked on for their voices. Judging by contemporary accounts it seems that Beethoven himself wasn't similarly gifted. The librettist and lepidopterist Georg Friedrich Treitschke claimed that Beethoven would growl when he was composing; Beethoven's biographer Anton Schindler said that he howled, and Beethoven's pupil Ferdinand Ries was of the view that his teacher did both. If those reports are true, then Beethoven's inability to produce a harmonious sound himself certainly didn't act as a deterrent to his compositional focus. A quick tally shows that somewhere in the region of half of his six hundred plus works were written for voice, mining subjects like love, persecution, loneliness, freedom, brotherhood and sacrifice, themes that Beethoven held very close to his heart.

Across the week Donald Macleod and his guests will be highlighting some personal favourites from Beethoven's vocal music, taking in the giants of choral repertory like Missa Solemnis and the ninth symphony, his opera Fidelio and orchestral vocal music, as well as relishing the astonishing variety of his songwriting, from the song cycle An die Ferne Geliebte and the most profoundly moving vocal masterpieces, to a comic song most likely dashed off to amuse friends in a bar.

Missa Solemnis and the smaller scale but the equally profound Abendlied unter dem gestirnten Himmel express many of Beethoven's beliefs. Perhaps he was in need of some light relief from the enormity of his musical preoccupations and his domestic problems when he found time to set some rather saucy lyrics too.

Der Kuss
Anne sofie von Otter, mezzo soprano
Melvyn Tan, fortepiano

Abendlied unter dem gestirnten Himmel
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone
J枚rg Demus, piano

Missa Solemnis in D major op 123
Credo
Robert Tear, tenor
Heather Harper, soprano
Janet Baker, mezzo soprano
Hans Sotin, bass
London Philharmonic Orchestra
New Philharmonia Chorus
Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor

Urians Reise um die Welt, op 52
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone
J枚rg Demus, piano

Symphony no 9
Fourth movement (excerpt)
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Mariss Jansons, director