Practical Workshop "The Romantic Beethoven"

University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart, November 25–27, 2026

Concerts, Lecture-Recitals, Lectures, Round-Tables

Contributions by Artem Belogurov, Christine Busch, Julian Caskel, Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde, Anderson Fiorelli, Tobias Janz, Andreas Meyer, Stefania Neonato, Neal Peres Da Costa, Pedro Sperandio, Frithjof Vollmer, among others.

In cooperation with the “House of Music” in the Fruchtkasten (Württemberg State Museum, Stuttgart)

Understandably, our understanding of a particular piece of music is significantly influenced by how it is played or sung. Referring Ludwig van Beethoven to Romanticism, therefore, also requires changed approaches to practical, performative interpretation (and ultimately to musical listening). But what does “romantic” interpretation mean here – with regard to Beethoven's time, to over 200 years of interpretation history, and finally to our present?
In the 20th century, “Romanticism” was understood as a rather heavy and voluminous sound, striking rubati or unnotated tempo modifications, a clustering of “expressive gestures” (Frithjof Vollmer), sometimes also a broad, suggestive dramaturgy of form (one thinks, for example, of Wilhelm Furtwängler's Beethoven recordings). This specific combination of “expression” and “construction” first emerged in the first third of the 20th century according to today's knowledge; the historical practice of the 19th century significantly differs from it. Even the aesthetics of Beethoven's time itself were subject to constant and profound development. “Classical and Romantic Performing Practice” (Clive Brown) do not form two different, self-contained stylistic worlds, but intertwine much more strongly than the dogmas of “period style” would like to admit. Beethoven himself, for example, endeavored on the piano (according to the testimony of Carl Czerny) for special melodiousness and legato and wanted this type of cantabile to be distinguished from the “chopped and shortly detached playing” of Mozart's time. It is well known that alone the construction of pianos underwent dramatic changes during his lifetime. Also, the rhetoric and expressiveness of Beethoven's music, the process character of the form (but at times also the suspension of passing time!) were “new” in his time. Furthermore, there was a changed understanding of authorship and the binding nature of the musical text.

Besides new approaches and impulses of “Historically Informed Interpretation”, the workshop discusses case studies from historical interpretation research (for example, using sound recordings or, for earlier practice, instrumental schools and instructive editions). The late 19th and early 20th-century Beethoven perception is not simply a misunderstanding but an artistic practice in its own right that can form a fascinating counterpart for current interpretations – in creative assimilation, but also in the repulsion from a perhaps now obsolete understanding of Romanticism. The rigid boundaries between different interpretational cultures (“old” vs. “new” vs. “classical-romantic” music) have long since fallen, thus paving the way to rediscover the “romantic Beethoven” – possibly from the present, possibly from Furtwängler (or Joseph Joachim) and perhaps even from the sensibility of the 18th century.

Alongside examples from chamber music or song, which correspond more to the practical aspects of the workshop, it is also possible (through historical sound recordings) to present examples from the symphonic area, which illustrate themes such as sonic power, overwhelming effect, or monumentality. Even the heroic aspect of Beethoven has a romantic reception history, up to the perversion of this idea in the 20th century (“steely Romanticism”). Across genres and fields, questions of musical form arise – such as those concerning tectonics, structure, the relationship of the particular to the whole. Interpretation does not merely have the task of “clarifying” complex formal progressions (perhaps as a faithful servant of musical analysis), but must also allow space for the fluid, ambiguous, hovering – how is this done?

At the beginning of the workshop, the overall conception of the project will be presented and discussed based on the status achieved by then (in anticipation of the Bonn conference). In the dialogue of scientific and artistic positions, the “romantic Beethoven” will undergo a “practical check”. While current practice (hopefully) derives impulses from research, conversely, reflective science is aware that its theorems do not originate at the desk or in the archive but are always also shaped by the impact of contemporary interpretations or the sonic reality of our present.