This question is brought to you
courtesy of my new CD purchase at Schiphol (Amsterdam) Airport -- a great place
to shop! GG Live in Leningrad 1957!
Okay ... hmmm ... Beethoven's Concert
No. 2 in B-Flat major, Op. 19 ...
I'm familiar with this piece, and this
is a fabulous rendition of it, surprisingly animated and inspired for a Soviet
orchestra from that era.
But what do you folks think of this
work as a composition?
Of course it's a powerful piece of pure
music, with drive, fascinating tempos, thrilling back-and-forth exchanges
between soloist and orchestra.
But it seems to lack a soul or a
meaning or a direction. It doesn't seem to be about anything ... not
love, not courage, not grief, not a celebration of bucolic nature things ... it
just seems bombastic, it doesn't seem to be trying to elicit deep emotional
things, it's more like the kind of excitement of a big football
game.
Does anybody know anything about it
historically, what it meant to Ludwig?
Elmer / Bob
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