Owed to Joy - a celebration of Beethoven and Europe - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

And isn’t it timely that as Britain extricates from Europe we pay tribute to Beethoven today? An Owed to Joy if you will.

This month marks the 250th anniversary of Ludwig’s birthday of the Great Man and we would have been there in Bonn with him.

But instead we will be doing the next best thing tonight… listening to the composer and an expert panel.

General Music Director Dirk Kaftan, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn and guests will be discussing his legacy.

Listen up

We’re reliably informed that you need to be on this link https://www.magenta-musik-360.de at 8.30pm tonight, Wednesday, December 16 and https://www.bthvn2020.de from 8.30pm.

And while we’re being transported to his childhood home to Bonn he has moved on and is spending eternity in Vienna.

Well his bones are… for his death mask, go to Teplice in the modern-day Czech Republic.

Visit the room he stayed in in the Beethoven Spa, and see said death mask and the hearing horns he tried when he was here.

You may even be inspired to pen some music when you visit the cafe there where a piano is the centrepiece.

Ludwig was, and he wrote his Seventh Symphony here.

The Beethoven celebrations continue digitally tomorrow night, Thursday, December 17, with a rendition of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto.

And his Symphony of Fate No. 5.

By pianist and conductor legend Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

And if all this gets your creative juices flowing then here’s a couple of recommendations of classical music cities from my travels.

MEET YOU AT INTERMISSION

1 thought on “Owed to Joy – a celebration of Beethoven and Europe”