I can’t remember how old I was when I first encountered the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, but I probably first heard his music on the record player in my paternal grandfather’s front room, a space which was used only

For much of his career and life, Beethoven was struggling financially. He would on occasion make a shedload of money, which he tended to invest in bank shares. However, the severe depreciation of the Austrian currency as a result of

It comes as no surprise that Beethoven moved dozens of times during his time in Vienna. Never a homeowner, he did not have much furniture to carry around, and finding lodgings was somewhat easier than it is now. However, he

My Beethoven Moment came by way of a Wagnerian dramatic soprano. The municipal theatre of the small town where I grew up – Bern, Switzerland – offered a rather limited operatic program. But they tried. When the Stadttheater Bern put

intense, immersive, impassioned, hugely demanding and hugely enrichingJonathan Biss, pianist It’s the single most humane music imaginableIgor Levit, pianist Somewhere in the world right now, as I write, a pianist is performing or recording the Beethoven Piano Sonatas, maybe just

In October 1802, Beethoven moved into a roughly 40 square meter apartment at Probusgasse 6 in the trendy spa town of Heiligenstadt. In his day, it would have been a substantial journey from the Vienna city center, and when Beethoven

Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein (1762-1823) was Beethoven’s first great patron in Bonn. Originally he hailed from Vienna, and after receiving the knighthood of the Order by its Grand Master Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria, he was sent on