BEETHOVEN 200: The Young Master

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Christen Bergs Allé 5,
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BEETHOVEN 200: The Young Master

Description

Kendzsi Tanaka, piano Beethoven's early piano sonatas are far more than promising works of youth. In Sonatas Nos. 2, 4 and 6 we meet a composer who from the very beginning had ambitions to expand the piano's expressive possibilities and put his personal stamp on the classical tradition. Inspired by Haydn and Mozart, but with an increasingly distinct voice of his own, Beethoven shows himself here as an artist on the way to greatness. Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 2 No. 2 combines elegance and virtuosity with surprisingly dramatic outbursts, while Sonata No. 4 in E-flat major, Op. 7 is the most extensive of the early sonatas and points ahead to the great works that were to follow. Sonata No. 6 in F major, Op. 10 No. 2 shows another side of Beethoven, with humour, lightness and a play of musical surprises that give the work a special charm. Together, the three sonatas paint a portrait of the young Beethoven in the process of finding his own musical language. Here one already senses the energy, inventiveness and artistic self-confidence that would later lead to some of music history's greatest masterpieces. This evening's soloist is Kendzsi Tanaka , a Japanese pianist living in Denmark, who over a number of years has made his mark as a versatile musician with a broad repertoire as both soloist and chamber musician. His playing is characterised by technical command, musical sensitivity and a special feeling for the piano's tonal nuances. With his combination of artistic curiosity and respect for the classical tradition he has won recognition from both audiences and critics. It is precisely these qualities that make him an obvious interpreter of Beethoven's early sonatas. With Kendzsi Tanaka at the piano, the audience has the chance to experience the elegance, the humour and the budding originality in works where the young composer truly begins to find his own voice. Everyone is welcome, and admission is free. BEETHOVEN 200 A journey through 32 piano sonatas In 2027 it will be 200 years since Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) died. The anniversary year is marked at Timotheuskirken with a large Beethoven festival, where throughout the year the audience has the chance to 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 piano literature's "New Testament", while Bach's Das wohltemperierte Klavier 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 distinguished pianists from both Denmark and abroad. The audience can meet musicians from the USA, Armenia, Japan and Argentina, who all 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 in perspective through works by other composers: Mauricio Kagel's virtuoso 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 ahead to 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.