CLASSICAL WEEKEND: BEETHOVEN FOR FLUTE
Ensemble 360
Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Friday 21 March 2025, 1.00pm / 5.15pm
£5 for everyone
Book Tickets
BEETHOVEN
Flute Sonata in B flat (25’)
Trio for piano, flute and bassoon (25’)
Be transported to the classical elegance of an 18th century salon in this concert celebrating Beethoven’s joyful, sparkling music for flute to open Classical Sheffield’s Festival Weekend. Beethoven’s Flute Sonata is full of his characterful wit, while his Trio showcases the dazzling virtuosity of Ensemble 360.
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BEETHOVEN Ludwig Van, Flute Sonata in B flat, Kinsky Anh. 4
- Allegro
- Polacca [Polonaise]
- Largo
- Theme and Variations: Allegretto
The authorship of this substantial flute sonata remains a mystery. But even if the identity of the composer remains uncertain, its association with Beethoven is genuine enough: a manuscript copy was found among the composer’s papers after his death. This found its way into the manuscript collection of the publisher Artaria and in their catalogue it appears as a ‘Sonata for piano and flute in B flat. Score. Autograph? Unpublished, probably from Beethoven’s early years.’ By 1970, when the Berlin State Library published a catalogue of its Beethoven holdings, the manuscript was described as a ‘fair copy’ and the attribution to Beethoven as ‘doubtful’. Even so, the title page has a note in pencil ‘Sonata fecit di Bethoe’ (i.e. Beethoven). If it is by Beethoven, then it is certainly an early piece, from his time in Bonn, before he moved to Vienna in 1792. The Beethoven scholar Willy Hess argued that Beethoven would not have kept a copy of the work in his library unless he had some sort of personal connection with it. This is a very fair assumption it gets us no closer to establishing the identity of the composer. It may have been by another pupil of Beethoven’s teacher Christian Gottlob Neefe, or by one of Beethoven’s colleagues from the court orchestra in which he played the viola. A further complication is that it might be a transcription of an as-yet-unidentified sonata for violin and piano, something suggested by the unidiomatic flute writing at the very start.
Whatever the facts about its attribution, the Flute Sonata is a work of considerable charm, with some attractive ideas. In place of a minuet, the second movement is a Polonaise, the slow movement a song-like Largo and the finale a set of variations.
BEETHOVEN Ludwig Van, Trio for Flute, Bassoon and Piano in G WoO.37
Allegro
Adagio
Tema andante con variazioni
Composed between 1786 and 1790, while Beethoven was still living in Bonn, the manuscript of this early work described it as a “Trio concertant à Clavibembalo, Flauto [e] Fagotto”. Whether it was ever played with a harpsichord is unclear, but it was composed for domestic music-making by the family of Baron Friedrich von Westerholt-Gysenberg, Equerry to the Elector of Bonn. The Baron himself was a bassoonist, his son Wilhelm was a flautist, and his daughter, Maria Anna Wilhelmine, was a fine pianist – according to Beethoven’s own teacher Neefe, her playing was “fiery” and of “marvellous accuracy”. For a time she was adored by the young Beethoven, who taught her the piano for several years before her marriage in 1792 and even sent her poetry declaring that “My heart will never change, and I will cherish you forever!”
Nigel Simeone © 2012