The Beethoven Project

Our 2020 Festival was to have been a celebration of Beethoven. We thought we’d make available, in one place, ‘The Beethoven Project’, Artistic Director Ian Watson’s and Susanna Ogata’s recordings of Beethoven’s ten Sonatas for Violin and Fortepiano.

These works are packed with drama, extreme tenderness, excitement, pathos, and wonderful examples of Beethoven’s metaphysical humour. Nine of the works were written in a five-year period: 1798–1803.

For violinists and pianists, the sonatas represent a kind of ‘Holy Grail’. Watson and Ogata perform on instruments of the period, the sound of which Beethoven would undoubtedly recognize. The artists’ aim was to recreate the white-hot emotions and passion that these sonatas must have generated in their first performances. We think they succeeded!

The Fortepiano
Ian Watson performs on a fortepiano built by Paul McNulty in 2000. This fortepiano is modelled after the Walter and Sohn pianos of the early 1800s. Anton Walter (1752-1826) is considered to be the foremost maker of Viennese style fortepianos of his time. His improvements to the Viennese fortepiano action remained a standard for many years. He built about 700 instruments, which were praised for their quality by Mozart, who bought a Walter in 1782, and by Beethoven, who played on one as well. Anton Walter was born near Stuttgart in 1752 and became active in Vienna in 1778. When his stepson joined the company in 1800, the firm name was changed from “Anton Walter” to “Anton Walter und Sohn”. This instrument has the increased compass of five and a half octaves which came into use around 1800.

Violin
Susanna Ogata performs on a Joseph Klotz violin built in 1772. Joseph was from a family of ‘Klotz’ instrument makers from Mittenwald, Germany, who were, and continue to be, highly regarded for their craftsmanship. Mozart most likely performed on an instrument built by a member of the Klotz family. The bow she is using is an original, unlabeled Pre-Tourte style model, most likely from France in the early 1800s.