It begins…
Sunday 7 December saw the first installment of Till Fellner’s Beethoven cycle in Washington, co-sponsored by the Embassy of Austria, the Embassy Series and Washington’s National Gallery of Art. In his concert review the musicologist Charles Downey (caught in the act here by photographer Joe Albright) reminds us that he’s a card-carrying convert to Till’s interpretations of Bach - ‘but what about his Beethoven?’
So far the reviews (Downey’s included) have been pretty amazing - even if mammoth Beethoven cycles are beginning to resemble modern attempts on Everest, complete with ‘castoff water bottles and PowerBar wrappers’ (at least, this is the mischevious vision conjured up by Anne Midgette’s gutsy review in the Washington Post).
The New York Times critic Vivien Schweitzer, on the other hand, ‘wished he would abandon decorum and open the floodgates for a while’.
Given how much work Till’s giving himself in the coming months, there are bound to be surprises ahead: the whole cycle, spanning seven concerts, is touring London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Vienna.
Ethan Ames
