Episode 33 – Vienna

John reveals more of Beethoven’s life in Vienna, as the French Revolutionary Army under Napoleon Bonaparte is bearing down on the city. Amongst the chaos and the noise, John asks - whatever possessed the great composer to write a set of Scottish folk songs? He also examines whether one of the most famous images of Beethoven from around this time is true; did he really take shelter in a basement, holding two cushions to his ears to protect his already damaged hearing from the noise of war? John discovers music Beethoven wrote amidst the turmoil; works which are surprisingly exuberant and carefree; a major new String Quartet, and the shortest and sweetest Piano Sonata of the thirty-five he ever composed. Finally, John tells the story that led to Beethoven composing the incidental music to a play written by a man he greatly admired - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. You might know the Egmont Overture from that play, but John also plays some of the other pieces that led Goethe himself to declare, “Beethoven has expressed my intentions with a remarkable degree of genius.” All the Beethoven pieces featured in this podcast are taken from the 90-disc Naxos box set, the Complete Beethoven Edition. You can buy yours by heading to Presto Classical and Europadisc.