After more than two centuries, Beethoven’s music hasn’t aged because what troubled him still troubles usMust he stay or should he leave? This history bears retelling for it takes us to the core of Beethoven’s music: the human spirit struggling towards an ideal. From the anguish of the war years, Furtwangler emerged to enrich our experience of music, especially Beethoven’s, with influential readings of his works. The critic, Bernard Jacobson, says Beethoven’s late style, particularly in the quartets, ‘can seem at the same time unprecedentedly complex and unprecedentedly simple’. In Beethoven’s music there’s no mistaking his social, moral and spiritual vision.

Source: The Hindu December 26, 2020 09:51 UTC