| This question is brought to you 
courtesy of my new CD purchase at Schiphol (Amsterdam) Airport -- a great place 
to shop! GG Live in Leningrad 1957! Okay ... hmmm ... Beethoven's Concert 
No. 2 in B-Flat major, Op. 19 ... I'm familiar with this piece, and this 
is a fabulous rendition of it, surprisingly animated and inspired for a Soviet 
orchestra from that era. But what do you folks think of this 
work as a composition? Of course it's a powerful piece of pure 
music, with drive, fascinating tempos, thrilling back-and-forth exchanges 
between soloist and orchestra. But it seems to lack a soul or a 
meaning or a direction. It doesn't seem to be about anything ... not 
love, not courage, not grief, not a celebration of bucolic nature things ... it 
just seems bombastic, it doesn't seem to be trying to elicit deep emotional 
things, it's more like the kind of excitement of a big football 
game. Does anybody know anything about it 
historically, what it meant to Ludwig? Elmer / Bob |