Beethoven: Innovations and Variations
In celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday, pianist, conductor, and vocal coach, Walter Morales, performed the 24 Variations on “Venni Amore,” WoO 65, Beethoven’s first major set of variations for solo piano. His program also included the Variations in C minor, WoO 80. Morales has written that the work “requires considerable virtuosity, with each variation presenting a different technical challenge so that it almost seems like a set of etudes. However, it is the sometimes violent emotional content that dominates.” Like much of Beethoven’s life, so have our lives been affected by many emotional experiences within the past year—the emotional ubiquity of the composer’s music is precisely the quality which makes it just as relevant as if it had been composed yesterday, despite it being 250 years since his birth!
Watch the December Friday Afternoon Musicale at the following link: Beethoven: Innovations and Variations.