Great Course - Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

 A scant five weeks ago, I blogged that I had started my latest Great Course, Beethoven's Piano Sonatas, taught once again by the marvelous Professor Robert Greenberg.

Oh my goodness.

If you'll recall, one of the reasons I decided to buy this course was being asked by Pascal "Mozart or Beethoven?"

I answered "That's like asking steak or barbeque ribs" (or something like that) and finally said "Mozart" but seriously, until these Great Courses on music, I had never studied the music.  I listened to some of it, and if I liked it, I liked it.  I had heard more Mozart over the years, and I liked the movie "Amadeus" so Mozart was my answer.

Now?  Well, I suppose, to be fair, I should listen to a Great Course on Mozart, but wow -- Beethoven was great!  I am asking for the Claude Frank recordings of the Beethoven Sonatas for Christmas, because I loved almost every excerpt I heard, and I would dearly enjoy hearing the full sonatas again.

But it's not just for hearing enjoyable music.  Dr. Greenberg did an excellent job showing me, even though I am just slightly educated in music theory, how revolutionary and full of genius Beethoven's compositions are. 

Based on what I now know of Mozart and Beethoven, I appreciate the amount of work an planning and "architecture" that went into Beethoven's work.  This is all the more extraordinary because of his initial fame resulting from improvisation.  Someone like that, who gets lauded for off-the-cuff brilliance might be tempted to specialize in that form. Had he done so, he would have been typically human.  Beethoven was not.  He believed in the inherent value of music, and particularly the value of composing based on simple ideas stretched, rolled and intensified into things of beauty.

If I had one warning for someone who wanted to listen to this Great Course it would be: Consider some of the more fundamental courses in Greenberg's series first.  I learned things about musical keys (or "key areas" as Greenberg would say) and the various forms of music -- such as sonatas themselves -- from other courses, and it helped deepen my appreciation for Beethoven's work in this one.  But it's not essential.

Excellent!