# Beethoven's Summer Vacation



## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

I am stepping out of "Vacation Mode" to share some music and provide some listening suggestions for August - though Trout and Oskaar have been keeping the blog space thoroughly entertained with their ongoing series, which I've taken the time to sample myself...

Last month, I left you with a month's worth of Canadian music, and this month - as many music institutions do in the Summer - I will concentrate on a "Composer Festival" format.

Remembering _the Beethoven Project_ (2011-12)

Over the span of a little more than a year, we programmed here and on other platforms all of Beethoven's major works for orchestra _twice_, once on our Friday montages and the other on our YouTube channel. There were also some "musical link" posts. Our _Podcast Vault selection _for this month is indeed a throwback from that project, featuring two works that have lots in common: the _Fourth _Piano Concerto and the _Pastoral _Symphony.

In my Blog post of December 20 2011, I introduced the first half of the mammoth Beethoven Concert Academy of 22 December 1808 where both these works were given their premiere in Vienna (along with the Fifth symphony, portions of the Mass in C major and the Choral Fantasy). This common (and infamous) premiere is the first direct link between the two works. The other is their common sense of peace and calm (albeit interrupted in both cases in significant passages).

The concerto is performed by Radu Lupu, and the symphony is taken from the Bernard Haitink/LSO cycle of a few years ago. The programme is completed with a selection from Beethoven's Pastoral piano sonata, played by Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Plagued by Link Obsolescence

Over the last few years, many third-party websites have changed their content, copyright holders have forced some content to be expunged, and sites have simply vanished. As I prepared for this post, I went back to some of these old Beethoven Project posts (some PTB Beethoven posts weren't mentioned in the article, so be aware...) and I was very disappointed to see that many links from our Summer of the String Quartet aren't supported anymore, and one of my classic posts on the Golden Age of Television featuring the November 1954 Bernstein Lecture on Beethoven's Fifth is now devoid of content.

I plan to feature the Beethoven String Quartet post and the Omnibus lecture (at least the audio portion...) as part of encore blogs as part of August's Friday Blog and Podcast programming.

Lots of posts Beethiven PTB are still OK:


Beethoven Gumdrops (Sep-20-2011)
My Beethoven Piano Concerto Cycles (Apr-17-2012)
The Summer of the Sonata - Part Five (Aug-07-2012)
Beethoven "In Camara" at Central Washington University (Jun-18-2013)

See you in September, when we return to our weekly format.

*ITYWLTMT Podcast Montage # 49 - Serene Beethoven
(Originally issued on Friday, March 30, 2012)​*
*Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)*

First movement (Allegro) from the Piano Sonata no. 15 in D Major, op. 28, "Pastoral" 
Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano 
[Complete Performance]

Piano Concerto no. 4 in G Major, op. 58 
Radu Lupu, piano 
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra 
Zubin Mehta, conducting

Symphony no. 6 in F Major, op. 68, "Pastoral"
London Symphony Orchestra 
Bernard Haitink, conducting


Original Commentary: http://itywltmt.blogspot.ca/2012/03/montage-49-serene-beethoven-beethoven.html#pages/2

Detailed Playlist: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/116434277/pcast049-Playlist

Podcat Link (Internet Archive): http://archive.org/details/SereneBeethoven

Poscast Link (Pod-O-Matic): http://itywltmt.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-05T00_00_00-07_00 (Link valid until 31 August 2014)


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