Beethoven started composing Leonore in January 1804. The subject – the release to freedom of an unjustly imprisoned man by his devoted wife – was part of the genre of ‘rescue operas’ which were very popular at the end of the 18th century. The premiere of Leonore, given before an uncomprehending audience at a time of political upheaval, was a failure and Beethoven responded by shortening the work from three acts to two, which was the version performed in 1806. After further revisions it was to emerge in 1814 as Fidelio. This performance is from Opera Lafayette’s Leonore Project which included a performance of Pierre Gaveaux’s Léonore, ou L’Amour conjugal (available on Naxos DVD 2.110591 and Blu-ray NBD0085V) – the opera on which Beethoven modelled his Leonore.
The tour of Paris starts with the Eiffel Tower and includes the famous landmarks of the French capital, the Churches of Notre-Dame and the Sacre Coeur, the Opera Garnier and the great river, the Seine, that runs through the city. The tour ends with a nocturnal view of Paris and an excursion to Chartres, with it's magnificent cathedral. Music for the tour is by Beethoven, who at one time seemed to hope for employment in Paris. His 'Eroica Symphony' was at first intended as a celebration of his one-time hero, Napoleon, but reflected, in the end, his disillusion when Napoleon had himself crowned as Emperor. The music used also includes Beethoven's 'Coriolanus Overture', written, not for Shakespeare's play, but for a contemporary drama by Heinrich von Collin.
Franz Anton Hoffmeister was active in Vienna both as a composer and a publisher, becoming closely associated with Mozart and including works by Beethoven amongst his editions. The combination of violin and cello had its appeal for the amateur market, though Hoffmeister’s Duos Op. 6 include plenty of technical challenges. Conjectured as being from Beethoven’s final years as a young man in Bonn, the three refreshing and inventive Duos for Clarinet and Bassoon are so pleasing that they have appeared in numerous arrangements
The Places Northern Italy has been ruled by various powers over the centuries. The Southern Tyrol, seen here, retains much of its Austrian past, with some regions predominantly German-speaking and others Italian. Scenes are shown of the Dolomites, the strangely shaped rock formations, a typical castle and mountain lakes. There are also views of the neighbouring Swiss-Italian canton of Ticino.
The Music Music for the tour is by Beethoven, with his Violin Concerto, written and first performed in Vienna, and one of his two Romances for solo violin and orchestra, independent pieces perhaps intended as slow movements for another concerto that was never completed.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3 Sound format: Dolby Digital / DTS Surround Region code: 0 (worldwide) Running time: 58mins No. of DVDs: 1
This is a live recording of a piano recital the great virtuoso Jorge Bolet gave 1988, in Schwetzingen (Germany), two years before his death. The performed works are by composers Jorge Bolet favoured most. This is a re-release of a SWR bestseller. When the first Schwetzingen Festival was held in 1952, even the optimists among the founders could not imagine that this was the beginning of a success story that would make it one of the major German festivals of the post war era. The "Schwetzingen script" of the fifties, "Comission new things, rediscover the old, give up and coming youngsters a chance," still holds today and is as modern as it was back then. Because it was founded by the Suddeutscher Rundfunk public broadcasting company and kept going after it's merger into Sudwestrundfunk, this festival has been documented as no other. From the very first day on, every musical event was recorded and broadcast. Thus the Schwetzingen Festival became in time the biggest classical radio festival in the world, with nearly 550 broadcasts on all continents. The list of performers and ensembles reads like an artists' "Who's Who" of recent decades. For the "Schwetzingen Festival Edition," we are opening up the archives and allowing you to enjoy some of the greatest moments in music.
Eroica - The Day That Changed Music Forever (Film By Nick Dear)
Opus Arte
DVD
$34.99Jun 21, 2005
Ian Hart, Tim Pigott-Smith, Claire Skinner, Jack Davenport, Frank Finlay, Fenella Woolgar, Lucy Akhurst, Leo Bill, Peter Hanson, Robert Glenister, Anton Lesser. Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique / Sir John Eliot Gardiner
By the time the first public performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No.3 (Eroica) took place in Vienna in 1805, a privileged few had already heard the work at a private play-through at the Lobkowitz Palace in June 1804. Nick Dear’s award-winning period drama, starring Ian Hart as Beethoven, brings to life the momentous day that prompted Haydn to remark ‘everything is different from today’. Filmed in 2003.
Running time: 129 mins Region Code: All regions Picture format: 16:9 Anamorphic Sound format: LPCM Stereo/DTS Surround Menu language: EN Subtitle languages: EN/FR/DE/ES/IT
R E V I E W S:
"You could not hope for a stronger cast." -- The Times
"A clever and beautifully made dramatisation." -- Sunday Times
"This was thrilling stuff, as exciting visually as it was aurally." -- Sunday Telegraph
"Ian Hart is brilliant as Beethoven, a volatile, magnetic figure of genius and uncouth charm…not to be missed." -- Daily Mail
Eroica is a semi-authentic dramatized account of the circumstances under which Beethoven’s Third Symphony was unleashed upon an Austrian aristocracy ill prepared to comprehend it, worried over the politics of the French Revolution, and yet somehow aware that it spoke of a world to come that would no longer be theirs. In this effort, the production is a smashing success....
The backdrop is a first rehearsal of the “Eroica” at the Lobkowitz palace. In a large drawing room, the musicians and illustrious guests assemble. The musicians are none other than the members of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, gussied up in full 19th-century Austrian costume. It must have been a real challenge to play in those ruffled cuffs, vests, and heavily adorned jackets, but they manage quite well. For the sake of authenticity, I presume, the female members of the ensemble have been sent packing....
The real art of this film lies in its silent acting. For long stretches, there is no dialogue at all. As the music unfolds, the actors in turn are shot up close, reacting to what they are hearing through intense facial expressions. Some are deeply moving, even disturbing, as in the Funeral March movement, where the camera focuses its lens on Count Dietrichstein. Here is the macho military man who has only words of criticism and disdain for Beethoven’s new symphony (which he maintains cannot even be called a “symphony”), fighting mightily to hold back his tears as the music recalls for him fellow soldiers fallen in battle....
I have complained in the past that in many instances DVDs of concert events have not yet figured out what to do with the visual dimension of the medium. This production offers a novel approach, and it is one that I really like. Part concert (Beethoven’s score is given in full) and part movie, it doesn’t really provide a lot of insight into why the “Eroica” is such a revolutionary work, but it does provide a magnificent snapshot of the cultural milieu into which the symphony was born, and the profoundly sublime to the profoundly ridiculous feelings it must have aroused in its first listeners.
Separate tracks in surround sound are included if you wish simply to listen to the symphony without watching the video, although even these tracks display a running score (ostensibly Beethoven’s original manuscript) interleaved with shots of the orchestra playing. I’m not going to rate the performance itself, because that is not the reason for buying this DVD. Gardiner and these same forces already recorded the “Eroica” on regular CD. The DVD is not the same performance.
This Prix d’Italia award-winning film from the BBC is urgently recommended.
The Glenn Gould wonderful musical talent was very precocious in all his provocative originality. Goul’s approach to the traditional repertoire left the audience completely amazed and admired at the same time. His Beethoven and mainly his Bach had that was predictable both for performance and choice of repertoire. In this CD , some very rare recordings are collected, realized by Gould when he was just twenty for the Canadian Radio
The Places Berlin was transformed into the capital of Brandenburg under the Elector Friedrich II in the 14th century, to become the capital of Prussia and then, in the 19th century, of a united Germany.
The Music Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony accompanies the tour to Berlin, with his third Leonora Overture and his overture to Goethe’s play Egmont.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3 Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0 Region code: 0 (worldwide) Running time: 56 mins No. of DVDs: 1
Beethoven: Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (The Creatures of Pr
Naxos
CD
$19.99Sep 13, 2019
Beethoven was commissioned to write his first stage work- a ballet score for Die Geschopfe des Prometheus ('The Creatures of Prometheus')- for the dancer and choreographer Salvatore Vigano, nephew of composer Luigi Boccherini. In the myth, Prometheus is punished by Zeus for stealing fire for the benefit of mankind; in the allegorical ballet, Prometheus brings Enlightenment ideas of art and science to humanity. The overture remains popular and the finale- the theme of which Beethoven was later to use in his 'Eroica' Symphony- offers a heroic conclusion.
