Category: Ludwig Van Beethoven

"Music isn't what I do, it's who I am"

27/3/2025

There’s a quote by Anonymous: “Music isn’t what I do, it’s who I am”. Because, historically, societal attitudes towards women designated them as inferior in the worlds of arts and sciences, women who composed music often found their compositions devalued accordingly. Consequently, much good music became “lost” through lack of exposure to the concert-going public. Thankfully, that is now beginning to be reversed.

Our first programme for the month of March, in recognition of the contribution of female composers to the world of music, featured works by five women from varied backgrounds and circumstances: Maria Antoine Walpurgis who used her political clout to advance her music, Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia, her royal position and connections; while Louise Farrenc, Professor of Music at the Paris Conservatoire for 30 years in the 19th century not only produced quality compositions but managed to achieve equal pay for men and women at the Conservatoire. Marie Jaëll had the good fortune to study composition with the likes of César Franck and Camille Saint-Saëns and achieved recognition through sheer persistence and hard work, while Florence Price persevered against the odds of being both female and Afro-American in the USA in the first half of the 20th century.

Our adventures into these little-known worlds will be balanced by a return to “Old-favourites” – Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky – for the second programme of the month. Who wrote the better music? Look up the notes and listen to the recordings posted below after the session. You might be surprised at the conclusion you come to.

Bill Squire.

Session Notes 14th March
Maria Walpurgis - Overture to Talestri Queen of the Amazons
Princess Anna Amalia - Flute Sonata in D
Maria Jaell - Cello Concerto
Louise Farrenc - Sextet for Piano and Winds
Florence Price - Piano Concerto in One Movement

Session Notes - 28th March
Beethoven - Leonora Overture No.3
Mozart - Violin Concerto No.4
Tchaikovsky - Rococo Variations
Beethoven - Wellington's Victory

August - 'Why fit in when you are born to stand out?'

26/8/2024

“Why fit in when you are born to stand out” is an ‘Elephant-in-the-Room’ quote often attributed to children’s author Dr Suess.

It could be applied to Johannes Brahms for whom Beethoven was the ‘elephant-in-the-room’ when it came to symphonic writing. Living in the shadow of Beethoven, Brahms was reluctant to compose a symphony for fear of it being compared to those of Beethoven. Hence it took him at least fourteen years to complete his first symphony.

It could be applied to Gabriel Fauré when he composed music for that classic ‘elephant-in-the-room” subject “death”. Faure’s Requiem is unique. He doesn’t comply totally with the traditional text. The anguish, loss and horrors of Death and Judgement Day, common to musical settings by other composers, are left by the wayside. Fauré concentrates on the true meaning of the word "Requiem", or "rest". His Requiem is about peaceful acceptance and release, and the music is serene, elevating, comforting.

Beethoven’s own ‘elephant-in-the-room’ was his ‘Septet for Wind and Strings’. The concert-going public loved it so much to the detriment of their acceptance of other works of his - works which Beethoven considered superior - that he could not bear to talk about it. “I wish I had burnt it”, he is reputed to have said of the Septet.

For your interest and enjoyment here are the links to the notes and recordings for these and other works which occupied us in the month of August.

Session Notes 9th August
Introduction to Academic Festival Overture
Brahms - Academic Festival Overture
Beethoven - Septet
Webern - Langsamer Satz
Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 12

Session Notes 23rd August
Beethoven - Prometheus Overture
Brahms - Symphony No.1
Faure Requiem - Netherlands Choir
Faure Requiem - Kings College Choir
Faure Requiem - Latin to English Text

Bill Squire.

'If you like what you see, why not enrol with us for 2021?'

27/11/2020

The final month of our U3A musical journeying has seen us staying close to Beethoven as his world-wide 250th anniversary celebrations draw to a close. There have been a couple of jumps ahead to the 20th century in the first session as we explored the ‘jazziness’ of George Gershwin’s Concerto in F played with “pizzazz” by 18yo soloist Alexander Molofeev, before allowing ourselves to be wafted away by Debussy’s Sonata for flute, viola and harp. But after that it was Beethoven all the way : his one and only Violin Concerto, the Waldstein Piano Sonata, a Bagatelle “Für Elise” (whoever she was), and finally the monumental 9th Symphony with its message of the universal brotherhood of mankind to wrap up both the year and our acknowledgement of the place Beethoven occupies in musical history.

To say that we have explored Beethoven in depth would be to stretch the truth, but amongst the many of his compositions we have featured, we at least have included all of the “Top 20” as voted by the listening public in the ABC Classic FM Beethoven Top 100” survey.

You can check out all of Music Appreciation's twice-monthly sessions on this page. If you like what you see, why not enrol with us for 2021? You would be most welcome.

Bill Squire

Class Notes:

13 November
27 November

The following recording of 18 year old Alexander Malofeev playing Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F with the Russian National Orchestra is conducted by Mikail Pletnev.

'Life is better with music'

27/6/2020

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was a little light on this month in terms of us trying to emulate the works they had planned to perform. Only five composers to choose from, so naturally all were selected, plus an extra Beethoven work to “make up the numbers” so to speak. Nevertheless, some interesting works as well as a couple of old favourites.

Check out the notes for each session below - they include links to YouTube for the performances.

Here are the class notes, which include links to videos to be watched, for 12th and 24th June.

Class Notes 12th June- Beethoven 2020, Tchaikovsky, Ravel and more

Class Notes 26th June - Beethoven 2020, Anton Bruckner, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Camille Saint-Saens

Beethoven 2020 - selections for June

12th June: "To celebrate Beethoven 2020 and round out this session, "I have turned to the MSO’s “Keep the Music Going” concerts for this time of isolation and to a performance of one of Beethoven’s string quartets which four of the MSO orchestra playing as the 'Quartz Quartet' performed and posted on YouTube last month"

26th June: "How serendipitous that on the planned MSO schedule of recitals for this month is the work that recently came in at No.3 in ABC Classic 100 – the 6th Symphony. A recent recording of it by the Philharmonic concluded the session"...

If you like what you see and haven’t joined up with our group as yet, either email me at [email protected] or give a me call on 0429 626 334 and I will only be too happy to include you in our twice monthly electronic mailout or provide another means if the computer is not the best medium for you.

I know this is not best way of doing what we do, but because it doesn’t look as though we will be back in our normal venue for a while yet, we must do something……. for, as the ABC FM presenters keep telling their listeners: “…… life’s better with music”.

So tune into your favourite music station at least, and keep well and keep safe.

Bill Squire
27June 2020

March 8 - 'Ludwig Van Beethoven'

8/3/2019

From Bach who took the high baroque to its absolute height, and was probably the most astonishing technical composer of all time, to Mozart who wrote prolifically and perfectly on a level that’s never been rivalled, whose “genius” was so manifest as to dwarf every other composer of his time, to Beethoven who by comparison had to struggle for his craft more than either of the above.

This has been our musical journey so far this year.

Although he wrote far less music than many of his contemporaries and predecessors, it is argued that Beethoven produced music that was somehow richer: richer, simply because in ‘struggling for every note on the page” as one critic put it, he “transcended form and reinvented small forms and blew up the symphony forever thereafter”.

Beethoven as the bridge between the “classical and the “romantic ” periods of composition was the subject of this morning’s musical exploration. Bookending the programme with the overture to and the finale of “Fidelio” – the only opera Beethoven produced (and 10 years nearly in the making at that) – we traced his work sequentially from early to later by opus numbers including excerpts from the range of instruments and genres for which he composed.

A number of ‘significant’ compositions were deliberately omitted from this morning’s session with a mind to a larger celebration of Beethoven’s contribution to music around the time of the 250th anniversary of his birth next year.

From solo to septet and sonata to symphony, you can view our morning’s presentation, complete with Youtube links to the various performances, on the Music Appreciation page of the U3A website.

Would you like to read the class notes for this session?

Ludwig Van Beethoven - Music Appreciation Class notes Friday March 8

Bill Squire

"Music isn't what I do, it's who I am"

August - 'Why fit in when you are born to stand out?'

'If you like what you see, why not enrol with us for 2021?'

'Life is better with music'

March 8 - 'Ludwig Van Beethoven'

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