From the Soundbox

Ludwig von Beethoven may have thought that in his music he was ex- pressing the misty complexities of the Rights of Man. In fact, he was trans- literating for his age the spirit of Soph- oclean tragedy. The pensive Beethoven was an Oedipus half awm:e of his pa- ternity, and pondering man’s fate. The thundering Beethoven was Oedipus alone, his eyes’ gore drenching his beard.

It is the reflective. Beethoven who dominates the Concerto in D Major for Violin (Opus 61). Tovey found in it a “sublime calm,” but he overstated the case-sublimity came in the last quru.·- tets or in Opus 111. But the calm and the inh’ospective are ah-eady there in a work which after long familiarity is still fresh, still moving. It speaks in long, limpid, rising figures which break and descend before they are resolved.

PC

About the Author

Paul Castelar

Ludwig von Beethoven may have thought that in his music he was ex- pressing the misty complexities of the Rights of Man. In fact, he was trans- literating for his age the spirit of Soph- oclean tragedy. The pensive Beethoven was an Oedipus half awm:e of his pa- ternity, and pondering man’s fate. The thundering Beethoven was Oedipus alone, his eyes’ gore drenching his beard.

It is the reflective. Beethoven who dominates the Concerto in D Major for Violin (Opus 61). Tovey found in it a “sublime calm,” but he overstated the case-sublimity came in the last quru.·- tets or in Opus 111. But the calm and the inh’ospective are ah-eady there in a work which after long familiarity is still fresh, still moving. It speaks in long, limpid, rising figures which break and descend before they are resolved.