My Encounters with Beethoven

Today it is June 4th, 2024.

This is my new Blog. A few years ago, I decided that I wanted to complete a bucket list item. I wanted to learn and perform all 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas. When Covid hit, I hit the pause button on this journey and decided to do some other projects. Beethoven’s music has always had a stronghold on me. so, after a month’s worth of compiling scores, pre-planning the map to accomplish this goal and putting myself on a health regiment to help accomplish this goal, I have started!

The 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven constitute an amazing amount of music. The famous 19th-century pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow called them the “New Testament” for pianists, the Old Testament being Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. I have played many of the Well-Tempered Clavier, but have shied away from Beethoven with exception to his First Piano Concerto and a few of his youthful sonatas out of the 32 sonatas.

I am back to practicing several hours a day. I play every day and study every day. I have since I was a young man around 7 years old when I heard my first Beethoven sonata. It wasn’t the “Moonlight” ,”Pathetique”, or “Appassionata”. It was the 25th sonata in G major, op.79. I was so taken with it. I learned the whole sonata for my first full length Organ and Piano recital when I was around 12 or 13 yrs. old. Even though a typical performance lasts somewhere around 10-11 minutes, mine was probably closer to 15 minutes as I didnt have enough skill or coordination to play Presto alla tedesca. As a child, I was so moved by this little sonata, I knew I had to listen to Beethoven’s music and that is what has started my love affair with his music.

At age 54, I decided that this project must be finished. It is less of a project and more of a lifetime dream or maybe, the next step in life as I have studied and loved his music since I was a small child. I have always felt comfortable is Beethoven’s musical universe. I come to these sonatas with 11 sonatas under my belt. My hope is to share many steps of my journey in climbing this musical “Mount Everest” of piano music. This blog is a way for many friends and followers to know what is happening and also a written record of the journey.

I hope you enjoy!

Sean