Yasmina Reza is best known as the author of the immensely successful Tony award-winning play Art. Her latest work, Hammerklavier, is a bittersweet collection of autobiographical sketches that have lov
In 1912 Heinrich Schenker contracted with the Viennese publisher Universal Edition to provide an 'elucidatory edition' (ErlA?uterungsausgabe) of Beethoven's last five piano sonatas. Each publication w
Richard Kramer follows the work of Beethoven and Schubert from 1815 through to the final months of their lives, when each were increasingly absorbed in iconic projects that would soon enough inspire notions of "late style." Here is Vienna, hosting a Congress in 1815 that would redraw national boundaries and reconfigure the European community for a full century. A snapshot captures two of its citizens, each seemingly oblivious of this momentous political environment: Schubert, not yet twenty years old and in the midst of his most prolific year-some 140 songs, four operas, and much else; Beethoven, struggling through a mid-life crisis that would yield the song cycle An die ferne Geliebte as well as two strikingly original cello sonatas and two formidable sonatas for the "Hammerklavier." In Richard Kramer's compelling reading, each seemed to be composing "against"--Beethoven, against the Enlightenment; Schubert, against the looming presence of the older composer even as his own musical
