Carnegie Hall

JANUARY:
Poetry and Music—Beethoven Dickinson, Whitman
January 3 at 7:00 p.m., The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

An evening of American poetry and Beethoven recordings that focuses on the themes of healing, gratitude and self-discovery, incorporating manuscripts and rare recordings from The New York Public Library’s archival collections.

Songs of Gratitude
January 4 at 2:30 p.m., Bruno Walter Auditorium, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Presented by Read650 and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Songs of Gratitude is a New Year’s celebration of healing arts: a curated series of five-minute, 650-word stories of gratitude from a cast of talented essayists, memoirists, and novelists—including Jamie Bernstein—followed by the New York Classical Players’ performance of Beethoven’s profound String Quartet No. 15, Op. 132, of which the central movement, written in the painful last years of his life, is a “holy song of gratitude.”


FEBRUARY:
Conversations With…
February 7 at 6:30 p.m., Gallery 684, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

A special tour of The Met’s newly renovated Musical Instruments Galleries—from gut strings to horns without valves, offers the opportunity to explore orchestral instruments as Beethoven would have known them, and to trace the development of their modern counterparts with The Met’s curator Bradley Strauchen-Scherer.

Double Andante
February 13, 14, and 15 at 8:00 p.m., Danspace Project, St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery

Presented by NYTB/CHAMBER WORKS as part of its 40th anniversary, Double Andante is a commissioned work choreographed by Pam Tanowitz in 2015. The 13-minute ballet, played live on piano two times at different tempos, is for 10 dancers set to the Andante of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 15 in D Major, Op. 28.

Short Course: Exploring Beethoven’s Soundscape
February 27, March 5, and March 12 at 2:00 p.m., Art Study Room, Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This three-session course considers the musical, technological, artistic, and social environment in which Beethoven’s first performers and audiences experienced his music. The Met’s curators Jayson Dobney and Bradley Strauchen-Scherer draw on instruments and art from across The Met’s collection to explore this interwoven narrative. The course includes demonstrations and performances of Beethoven’s chamber music on period instruments.

Beethoven at the Library
February 29 at 2:30 p.m., Bruno Walter Auditorium, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Beethoven at the Library features pianist Evelyn Chen, violinist Richard Lin and cellist Brinton Averil Smith performing Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 97, “Archduke,” accompanied by recitations of his letters and journal entries. Beethoven’s extensive sketches of the famous “Archduke” Trio are among the library’s most treasured artifacts and the trio’s concert is performed in conjunction with a one-day-only pop-up exhibition of the composer’s manuscripts.


MARCH:
Beethoven: Music, Revolution, and Romantic Culture
March 2, 9, 16, and 23 at 6:45 p.m., Goethe-Institut New York

Presented by The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, this four-week course explores Beethoven’s music in the context of the ideas, art, and political struggles that shaped it. Through a selective study of the symphonies, piano sonatas, string quartets, and Missa solemnis, the course offers the opportunity to consider his music’s relationship to the Enlightenment, political revolution, musical technology, Romanticism, and the contemporary avant-garde.

Trois Grandes Fugues
March 18-22, The Joyce Theater

France’s treasured Lyon Opera Ballet performs Trois Grandes Fugues, a stunning triple-bill that presents the work of trailblazing choreographers Maguy Marin, Lucinda Childs, and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. These women each undertake the musical complexity of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, in three different choreographic imaginings.

St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble
March 25 at 7:30 p.m., Gilder Lehrman Hall, The Morgan Library & Museum

St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, joined by pianist Paavali Jumppanen, performs Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, “Eroica” (in a chamber arrangement by Beethoven’s friend and student, Ferdinand Ries) and Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Major, Op. 16. Running in conjunction with this performance at The Morgan Library & Museum is the Morgan’s collection of autograph manuscripts by Beethoven which are on view from January 21-April 26.

Beethoven and Beyond: a Symposium
March 28 at 11:00 a.m., Goethe-Institut New York

This daylong symposium, featuring scholars, artists, and critics, explores Beethoven’s transformational impact on Western music, artistry, culture, and sensibility. What explains his extraordinary singularity? From what cultural, political, and philosophical sources did Beethoven draw? In what ways did he “invent” the modern artist and celebrity—and why does he stand, to this day, as a symbol of artistic autonomy and mercurial genius?

Beethoven in London: Spektral Quartet
March 28 at 7:00 p.m., Gallery 515, Dining Room from Lansdowne House, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In celebration of the reopening of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s British Galleries, MetLiveArts presents two intimate, in-gallery performances featuring music that would have been originally heard in London’s opulent homes. The first of these two performances take place on March 28 and features the Spektral Quartet performing a program that includes Beethoven’s last major work, the String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135—an intellectually confounding and emotionally ravaging piece with sharp contrasts of lightness and darkness.


APRIL:
Can & Able! The Resilience of the Gift
April 13 at 6:00 p.m., Bruno Walter Auditorium, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Can & Able! The Resilience of the Gift, presented by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the National Black Theatre, brings together differently abled Black artists for an evening of new, multidisciplinary micro-commissions inspired by Beethoven’s resilience to create in spite of his health challenges. Drawing from the composer’s personal journal and his late period “Archduke” Trio, the artists celebrate how art can change the world “in spite of.”

Beethoven’s Literary Afterlife
April 20 at 6:15 p.m., Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University

In an exploration of Beethoven’s literary afterlife through the lens of chamber music, Beethoven’s Literary Afterlife examines the formation of a musical legacy, including lectures by Columbia professors Nicholas Dames and Arden Hegele, and Rutgers professor Nicholas Chong, as well as a performance of the composer’s Violin Sonata No. 7, Op. 30, No. 2 by violinist Chad Hoopes and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott. This event is presented by The Society of Fellows and the Heyman Center for the Humanities and the Italian Academy for Advances Studies in America, Columbia University.

Beethoven in the Yiddish Imagination
April 20 at 7:00 p.m., YIVO Institute for Jewish Research at the Center for Jewish History

The evening’s program is a celebration of Beethoven in the Yiddish imagination, including a Yiddish translation of “Ode to Joy” and a bilingual reading of a Yiddish story about the “Moonlight” Sonata. An die ferne Geliebte and the String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131, will also be performed following a discussion of the largely unknown Jewish influences on these works.

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre
April 28-May 3, The Joyce Theater

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre celebrates its 50th anniversary season with a diverse program the features Mark Morris’s Maelstrom, with music from Beethoven’s haunting and sprightly “Ghost” Trio; Nacho Duato’s magical Duende, set to the music of Debussy; and a new work from Pittsburgh choreographer Staycee Pearl, known for blending movement and multimedia elements to fascinating effect.


MAY:
St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble
May 6 at 7:30 p.m., Gilder Lehrman Hall, The Morgan Library & Museum

In partnership with The Morgan Library & Museum, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble presents an all-Beethoven program featuring the Sextet in E-flat Major, Op. 81b and Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 20.

Dance with MMDG-Family Class
May 9 at 3:00 p.m. at Mark Morris Dance Center

Company members of Mark Morris Dance Group will teach a class for families accompanied by live music. People of all ages and dance levels, with and without disabilities, will learn excerpts of the vignettes from Morris’s The Muir, set to Beethoven’s arrangements of Irish and Scottish folk songs.


BEETHOVEN CELEBRATION APPLE MUSIC PLAYLISTS:
Complementing this exciting array of partner events, Apple Music will celebrate Beethoven with exclusive recordings, videos, playlists, radio stations, and more. Co-curated with Carnegie Hall, Apple Music’s Beethoven radio station will feature a wealth of recordings during the anniversary year. In addition, Carnegie Hall will curate its own playlist focused on the master composer, featuring recordings by internationally renowned musicians performing at the Hall throughout the season (www.applemusic.com/beethoven2020).

For a full schedule of Beethoven Celebration events, click here.

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Lead support for the Beethoven Celebration is provided by The Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund.

Public support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Bank of America is the Proud Season Sponsor of Carnegie Hall. 

In honor of the centenary of his birth, Carnegie Hall’s 2019–2020 season is dedicated to the memory of Isaac Stern in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to Carnegie Hall, arts advocacy, and the field of music.

For high resolutions images of Beethoven Celebration artists, please contact the Carnegie Hall Public Relations Office at 212-903-9750 or publicrelations@carnegiehall.org.

Photo credits for photo block L to R: John Eliot Gardiner by Sim Canetty-Clarke; Joyce DiDonato by Simon Pauly; Jörg Widmann by Marco Borggreve; Leonidas Kavakos, Emanuel Ax, and Yo-Yo Ma by Shane McCauley; Quatuor Ébène by Julien Mignot; Anne-Sophie Mutter by Kristian Schuller/DG; Yannick Nézet-Séguin by Hans van der Woerd; and Mitsuko Uchida by Justin Pumfrey/Decca. Additional photo credits: Double Andante by Rachel Neville; autograph manuscript of Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 97, “Archduke,” 1810-1811, The New York Public Library Digital Collection; Trois Grandes Fugues by Bernard Stofleth; Spektral Quartet by Daniel Kullman; Chad Hoopes by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco; and portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven when composing the Missa solemnis, 1820, by Joseph Karl Stieler, Beethoven-Haus Bonn.