Was Beethoven a Believer? The Case of the “Missa Solemnis”

By |2020-08-20T15:54:02-05:00August 1st, 2020|Categories: Audio/Video, Beethoven 250, Catholicism, Ludwig van Beethoven, Music, Religion, Timeless Essays|

Can an unbeliever, a denier of the faith, produce such music as Beethoven did in his Missa Solemnis? It has long been fashionable in music history textbooks to speak of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis as a purely artistic statement that, to be blunt, uses the texts of the Catholic Mass as a convenient springboard for musical experimentation and an [...]

Why Is Beethoven So Popular?

By |2020-08-20T15:55:40-05:00June 22nd, 2020|Categories: Beethoven 250, Ludwig van Beethoven, Michael De Sapio, Music|

It is Beethoven—not Bach or Mozart—who is the most universally popular composer in the classical canon. Why is this? Some authors have posited his democratic social beliefs or his personal story of victory over deafness. These are all certainly factors, but I prefer to look first at the aesthetic qualities of the music itself. Johann [...]

“The Glorious Moment”

By |2023-06-09T07:37:48-05:00June 9th, 2020|Categories: Audio/Video, Beethoven 250, Ludwig van Beethoven, Music|

Beethoven’s unusual cantata Der glorreiche Augenblick (The Glorious Moment), Op. 136, was commissioned by the Vienna City Administration. The work has an undistinguished text suited to the occasion of its first performance, a tribute to the kings and princes of Europe after the defeat of Napoleon, words that are at least better than those that Beethoven had [...]

Revitalizing Beethoven’s Music: The Legacy of Nikolaus Harnoncourt

By |2023-02-06T08:05:34-06:00April 20th, 2020|Categories: Beethoven 250, Ludwig van Beethoven, Michael De Sapio, Music|

For conductor and musicologist  Nikolaus Harnoncourt, expressive meaning was central to music. Music can cry out in pain or anger, it can soothe, it can exult in joy. Harnoncourt sought to restore these many meanings to music and, for this reason, insisted on drama and urgency in his performances. In particular his Beethoven recordings possess [...]

Beethoven, the Multi-Faceted Revolutionary

By |2020-08-20T16:15:03-05:00April 1st, 2020|Categories: Beethoven 250, Ludwig van Beethoven, Music|

Beethoven combined a breadth of contemplative serenity and a concentrated loftiness of thought, a yearning for a place utterly pure and free of this vale of tears, a vale in which he functioned so erratically and from which he eventually completely withdrew. He was a man who eventually tamed his self-serving musical passions, pierced the [...]

“Christ on the Mount of Olives”: Beethoven’s Passion Oratorio

By |2023-04-08T17:46:47-05:00March 25th, 2020|Categories: Beethoven 250, Easter, Lent, Ludwig van Beethoven, Michael De Sapio, Music|

While many artists and composers have depicted the Passion of Christ, Beethoven carried an especially weighty cross in the form of his privation of hearing, which isolated him from society and forced him to compose music from his “inner ear.” Like Christ in the Garden, he found himself alone and forsaken, wrestling with a tribulation [...]

The Art of Beethoven: Between Romantic and Classical

By |2020-08-20T16:27:38-05:00February 12th, 2020|Categories: Beethoven 250, Ludwig van Beethoven, Music|

Beethoven’s music would become the score for the Romantic era, as many of its champions loved how it conveyed the story of the individual, free man. Oddly enough, however, Beethoven was anything but a Romantic, nor was he a revolutionist or a democrat. There are many things that have been said about Beethoven and his [...]

Further Reflections on Beethoven’s Best Work

By |2020-08-20T16:19:54-05:00February 6th, 2020|Categories: Beethoven 250, Ludwig van Beethoven, Music|

The question becomes, by what criteria do we determine what is objectively the “best” in the arts? I think that "communication" is a crucially important criterion, and I propose that a transcendent reflection of God, who is the divine source of objective truth, expressed in human creativity is indeed objectively, theologically "better" than mathematical integrity [...]

Which Is Beethoven’s Best Work?

By |2020-08-20T16:08:14-05:00January 29th, 2020|Categories: Audio/Video, Beethoven 250, Joseph Pearce, Ludwig van Beethoven, Music|

As this year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Beethoven, I’ve been inspired to muse upon his oeuvre and to ask myself which of his many works could be considered the best. It is, however, necessary to say upfront that there are two kinds of “best.” There is the objective “best” and the [...]

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