Specifically, Cantata on the Death of the Emperor Joseph II. Here's the whole story. And the whole story is fascinating.
Brahms examined the manuscript in 1884 and was moved to write to the critic Eduard Hanslick: "Even if there were no name on the title page, none other could be conjectured—it is Beethoven through and through: the beautiful and noble pathos, sublime in its feeling and imagination; the intensity, perhaps violent in its expression; moreover, the voice-leading and declamation, and in the two outer sections all the characteristics which we may observe in and associate with his later works!
So I've got a new life goal - seeing it live. See what you can do Seattle Symphony. If you don't come through, I'll have to resort to traveling somewhere else to see it. Not the worse possible thing that could happen. San Francisco? New York? Vienna? I like these options.
Comments