Beethoven in Love
Despite his apparent gruff, bearlike demeanour Beethoven was quite a hit with the ladies
The starting point for this programme is Adelaide, possibly Beethoven’s best. In his catalogue it is listed as ‘cantata for soprano’, though current discography features an almost entirely male line-up. Around this song we present various views of love and lovers: ecstasy, contentment, despair, coyness, seductiveness; from and English, French and German perspective. Some of these, Faure Notre Amour, Schubert Gretchen, Vaughan Williams Silent Noon are pretty mainstream but we include some undiscovered gems, not least of which are the two Beethoven songs, Adelaide and Mailied, with Wolf and Reynaldo Hahn just begging to be heard more
Do join us on the third of our Beethoven odyssey and discover the undiscovered side of the composer whom the media tell us is the world’s most popular composer!
Performers
Elizabeth Charlesworth (soprano) and Richard Taylor (piano)
Programme
- Mozart: An Chloe
- Beethoven: Adelaide
- Beethoven: Mailied
- Schubert: Lachen und Weinen
- Schubert: Gretchen am Spinnrade
- Wolf: Das verlassene Magdlein
- Wolf: Bescheidene Liebe
- Faure: Notre Amour
- Hahn: Reverie
- Hahn: L’Enamouree
- Satie: Je te veux
- Vaughan Williams: Silent Noon
- Quilter: Love’s Philosophy
- Quilter: Take, O Take those Lips away
- Quilter: O Mistress Mine
- Britten: Tell me the Truth about Love
