International Conference "The Romantic Beethoven: 1827–1927–2027"
Cooperation project of the University of Bonn, the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart, and the Beethoven House Bonn
Beethoven House Bonn, Chamber Music Hall, April 15-18, 2027
Concept and direction: Prof. Dr. Tobias Janz (Bonn), Prof. Dr. Andreas Meyer (Stuttgart)
2027 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of Beethoven's death, and the Bonn Beethoven Archive celebrates its hundredth anniversary. The conference takes up this constellation in the manner of a methodological "triangulation." Here, Beethoven's own lifetime – until 1827 –, the early and mid-20th-century view of Beethoven – as seen in the highly prominent reception during the commemorative year 1927 – and our own present – 2027 – are related to each other. The three years are rather thought of as historical "markers" representing longer periods, not as "synchronous cuts" in the narrower sense. The question of whether or to what extent Beethoven was a Romantic cannot be answered with a simple classification – as there is a "romantic Beethoven," it is also rightly said that there is a "classical Schubert," Beethoven's connection to "baroque" compositional theory highlighted, among others. Rather, the figure of the romantic Beethoven serves as an issue that should allow new light to be shed on Beethoven's music in its time, a decisive moment in its impact and reception history, and not least on its current perception.
On the three panels
1827
Following on from interdisciplinary contemporary Romantic research, Beethoven's place amidst the diverse cultural currents between politics and philosophy, literature, arts, and theology in Europe around and after 1800 will be re-examined. Today, we have a more precise view of the diverse historical contexts and actual points of contact Beethoven had with literary and philosophical (early) Romanticism, including supraregional networks, print media, etc. Romanticism in music does not begin only with Schubert and is (as in literature) a pan-European phenomenon.
An intuitive understanding of Romanticism corresponds primarily to the works of the "late middle Beethoven" after 1810. A particular challenge—here as always when trying to understand Beethoven in his time—is the late work, which seems to depart equally from Classicism and Romanticism.
1927
The Beethoven centennial celebration in the wake of the anti-romantic zeitgeist is perhaps more a peak in the veneration of the "classical" tone hero, although there were also objections to this view. The Romantic problem intensifies in the subsequent period against the background of political and historical development, with voices as diverse as Thomas Mann or Victor Klemperer holding the Romantic "irrationalism" complicit in the German Sonderweg (and ultimately Hitler's fascism). Possibly for this reason, the "romantic Beethoven" remains sidelined in German-language literature for decades after 1945.
2027
In a naive understanding, the identification of music with Romanticism or the "Romantic" is more self-evident today than ever—also a bridge to Beethoven? However, concrete Beethoven references in pop music tend to focus more on the eternally same fragments, some of which (opening of the Fifth, final movement of the 9th Symphony, etc.) encode an idea of "classical" greatness, while others (Für Elise, Moonlight Sonata) indeed pull a "romantic" register. Another picture is shown by the diverse adaptations and deconstructions in contemporary composed music.
The range of possible approaches, once again, extends from the popular bestseller to in-depth sociological analysis. Current musicological attempts to relate Beethoven more to the "thought world of his youth" or the late Enlightenment, for example, operate with predicates like composure, reason, and confidence, which are set against the "disturbances" of Romanticism.
In the confrontation and mutual dialogue of the three time levels, questions can be formulated about the music of Beethoven and his time as well as our own—questions about form strategies, inner structure, sound character, and affective content, but also questions about listening habits and the possibilities of their performance and interpretation in the early 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. The conference results will be published promptly in a collected volume of the "Stuttgarter Musikwissenschaftliche Schriften" series by Schott Verlag.