BEETHOVEN 200: As Beethoven heard it

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BEETHOVEN 200: As Beethoven heard it

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Sonatas 1, 2, 3 Gilbert Martinez, fortepiano. The Beethoven Festival opens with the three sonatas Op. 2, works that the young Ludwig van Beethoven published in Vienna in 1796 and dedicated to his teacher Joseph Haydn. The sonatas mark the beginning of one of the most significant sonata series in music history and already show a composer with a remarkably personal voice. In these three works one can hear Beethoven testing and expanding the classical framework he had inherited from Haydn and Mozart. The sonatas contain virtuosity, humour, lyricism and dramatic power, and they already point towards the artistic freedom and depth that would come to characterise his later works. The concert is performed on fortepiano by the American fortepiano specialist Gilbert Martinez, who brings his own instrument for the occasion. The fortepiano is the type of piano Beethoven himself knew, and it gives the audience the chance to experience the music with a sound world closer to the composer's own. Gilbert Martinez is an internationally recognised specialist in historical keyboard instruments. He is active as a soloist, chamber musician and researcher, and has performed at festivals and concert venues in Europe, North America and Asia. His interpretations are characterised by lively musicality and a deep understanding of the particular possibilities and expressive power of historical instruments. As the opening concert of Beethoven 200, this afternoon offers a rare chance to meet the young Beethoven through the works that began his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of the piano sonata, and at the same time to experience the music on the instrument it was originally conceived for. Everyone is welcome, and admission is free. BEETHOVEN 200 A journey through 32 piano sonatas In 2027 it is 200 years since Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) died. The anniversary year is marked at Timotheuskirken with a major Beethoven festival, where throughout the year the audience can experience all of the composer's 32 piano sonatas. Beethoven's sonatas are counted among the greatest masterpieces in music history and are often referred to as the "New Testament" of the piano literature, while Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier is called the Old. Together the sonatas paint a fascinating portrait of a composer who again and again moved the boundaries of what music could express. Most of the works are performed on the church's new concert grand, a Steinway Model D, but a few concerts also offer the chance to hear the sonatas on the fortepiano, the instrument Beethoven himself knew. The American fortepiano specialist Gilbert Martinez takes part in these concerts and gives an exciting insight into how the music may have sounded in the composer's own time. The festival brings together a number of outstanding pianists from both Denmark and abroad. The audience can meet musicians from the USA, Armenia, Japan and Argentina, all of whom put their personal stamp on the interpretation of Beethoven. In addition to the sonatas, the festival offers a few special bonus programmes. Here one can hear, among other things, the Eroica Variations, Op. 35 and Beethoven's own four-hand version of the monumental Grosse Fuge, Op. 130. Beethoven is also put into perspective through works by other composers: Mauricio Kagel's virtuosic piano étude An Tasten (1977), which contains numerous greetings to Beethoven, and Jan Ladislav Dussek's Sonata in D major, Op. 31 No. 2 from 1800. The sonata was written five years before Beethoven's Pastoral Sonata, Op. 28, and the connection between the two works is clear. Today Dussek's sonata is rarely performed, but both works point towards Romantic music and mark the transition from the classical style to a new musical age. Timotheuskirken's Beethoven Festival runs from 24 January to 14 November 2027. All concerts take place on Sundays at 16.00. Admission is free to all concerts.