Unknown Beethoven

We thought, 2020 undoubtedly would become a year of great celebration of Ludwig van Beethoven’s oeuvre – well-known, less-known, un-known – with even taking risky actions of writing the end of Beethoven’s unfinished N10 symphony by AI or reconstruction of the early “Fidelio” half-vanished arias by musicologists/composers. But the virus had different plans.

Still, we are up to celebrate his birthday.

After 250 years of this giant’s performances and scholarship, it is commonly believed that we already know everything about this man and his music. But clearly, that’s not the case. Ask anyone to name their all-time Beethoven Top 10 and his symphonies, concertos, piano sonatas and string quartets are sure to figure highly. Beethoven, of course, wrote a great deal more than those well-known works; one catalogue of his compositions runs to 849 separate items. While several hundreds of these works have been recorded on one medium or another, there still remain literally hundreds of other works which have never been recorded at all, or which have never been published in widely available editions or in some cases, never published at all! There are thus hundreds of Beethoven works which, until now, have been available only to scholars and specialists. Hidden away amongst the many dozens of other pieces he composed are a number of cherished works that are also worth seeking out.

A concert of WoOs. Armenian Premiere!

Werke ohne Opuszahl ("Works without opus number") (WoO)!!!

These are compositions of the great genius that was not originally published with an opus number. Some 218!!!

During this Covid -year we have deeply worked on them performing, researching, translating, going deep.

We believe, bringing forward Beethoven’s lesser-known repertoire will result in a broadening of his appeal. Getting Beethoven out of the symphony hall into smaller venues can only deepen our knowledge of him as a stunningly intimate genius.

As such, the Beethoven activities invite visitors to rediscover Beethoven anew and different.