(A) Introduction
I mentioned my classical music studies to a friend who’s far more versed in this than I am, and explained how I was working my way through Paganini’s violin concertos.
At one point he said to me: “you should listen to the Beethoven violin concerto, or Brahms”. Sure, why not! I tracked down the ol’ Ludwig Van’s violin concerto and queued it up.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) is one of the giants of classical music. A veritable Beatles of classical music: he’s on top of the heap, and no one can touch him.
According to the Naxos website, “Beethoven did much to enlarge the possibilities of music and widen the horizons of later generations of composers. To his contemporaries he was sometimes a controversial figure, making heavy demands on listeners both by the length and by the complexity of his writing, as he explored new fields of music.”
Uh-oh. I’m not so sure I should be getting into this so early into the project. But, here I am, so I’m going to take a whack at his violin concerto. He only wrote one, which should help limit my scope of inquiry.
