In\u00a0The Life & Times of Beethoven<\/i>, celebrated composer and music historian Professor Robert Greenberg of San Francisco Performances gives listeners a unique perspective on a musical genius the likes of which the world had never seen before\u2014or since.<\/p>\n
Blending biography, history, and music appreciation, these 10 lectures portray Beethoven\u2019s extraordinary (and still modern-sounding) music as a direct outgrowth of his life, environment, and interior emotional landscape. What makes Beethoven\u2019s anger so special is that he was the first composer to portray his own raw (sometimes even violent) emotions directly in his music. As a result, for more than 200 years, works like his later quartets, his Hammerklavier sonata, and his Symphony No. 9, have moved, touched, and sometimes even frightened listeners in a manner almost primal.<\/p>\n
Professor Greenberg lays bare the links between Beethoven\u2019s life and his incredible output of music. Listeners will learn:
\n\u2022 How the crisis involving Beethoven\u2019s hearing became a catalyst for his musical creativity and originality,
\n\u2022 How Beethoven\u2019s infatuation with Napoleon helped him change the language of Western music,
\n\u2022 How Beethoven\u2019s \u201cHeroic Music\u201d helped the composer symbolically overcome his pain and unhappiness,
\n\u2022 How six factors contributed to Beethoven\u2019s crushing fall from popular grace in 1815,
\n\u2022 How Beethoven revolutionized the genre of string quartets during the last two years of his compositional life, and much more!<\/p>\n
These lectures give an unforgettable perspective of an angry, alienated composer, who, nevertheless, translated personal defeats into musical triumphs.<\/p>\n