Beethoven Mythologies

The LRB Podcast

London Review of Books

Society & Culture

4.4 • 581 Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2021

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

James Wood talks to Thomas Jones about Beethoven, drawing on his review of three recent books on the composer. They discuss some of the apparently immovable Beethoven mythologies – the keyboard pedagogy, the heroic glower, the many appropriations of the 9th Symphony – and the blend of Viennese tradition and radical invention which characterises his music, particularly the piano sonatas, from the ethereal melodic sweetness of The Tempest to the terrifying, thumping trills of the Hammerklavier. Read James Wood's piece here: https://lrb.me/beethovenpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Pieces and recordings featured in this episode: 5th Symphony: Berlin Philharmonic / Furtwängler (1954) 3rd Symphony: Berlin Philharmonic / Furtwängler (1952) Piano Sonata No. 29 (‘Hammerklavier’): Barenboim (1984) Piano Sonata No. 29 (‘Hammerklavier’): Solomon (1952) Piano Sonata No. 17 (‘The Tempest’): Gould (1960) 9th Symphony: Beyreuth Festival Orchestra / Furtwängler (1951) Piano Sonata No. 7: Horowitz (1959) Piano Sonata No. 26 (‘Les Adieux’): Kempff (1951) Piano Sonata No. 31: Hess (1953) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you enjoy listening to the LRB podcast, then you'll probably enjoy reading the LRB.
0:06.1	You can subscribe to the LRB from just one pound per issue.
0:10.7	To find out more, go to LRB.m.me forward slash listen.
0:16.1	That's LRB.m.m.m. forward slash listen.
0:23.8	Or click on the link in the description below this episode.
0:29.9	Hello and welcome to the London Review of Books podcast. My name is Thomas Jones. This week,
0:35.0	the first week of 2021, I'm speaking with James Wood, the author of several books of criticism as well as two novels, a staff writer at the New Yorker,
0:38.2	professor of the practice of literary criticism at Harvard,
0:41.0	and a member of the London Review's editorial board.
0:43.5	He has a piece in the current issue of the LRV on Beethoven.
0:47.0	It's a review of three books,
0:48.7	one by Laura Tunbridge, Beethoven, A Life in Nine Pieces,
0:52.5	and two by Mark Evan Bonds,
0:55.7	the Beethoven syndrome, hearing music as Pieces, and two by Mark Evan Bonds, the Beethoven syndrome,
1:01.7	hearing music as autobiography, and Beethoven variations on a life. Also listed at the top of the piece is the new complete edition of Beethoven's works, released by Deutsche Grammophon to mark the
1:06.7	250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth on 123 discs. Hello, James, and thank you very much for
1:13.4	joining me. Hi Tom, thanks for having me. Nicholas Spice, writing on Glenn Gould in the LRB in 1992,
1:19.8	described Middle Beethoven as one of the points in the musical canon where fresh hearing has become
1:25.4	most difficult. And I thought we could begin by talking about that difficulty
1:28.6	and the way that overfamiliarity or other people's ideas of Beethoven,
1:33.6	what you call in your piece, the heroic glower of his portrait,
1:37.0	the worldwide canonicity, or the way that our own ideas prevent us from really listening to the music.
	...

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