The Los Angeles Philharmonic is calling its cycle of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, which Gustavo Dudamel began Thursday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, “Immortal Beethoven.” That may not be an ...

Living in this world of the quick image, a new look at what is familiar can be challenging. The symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven are a case in point. Generations of musicians mindful of Beethoven’s ...

Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonies have influenced every generation of composers since they were written. Riccardo Chailly talks to Philip Clark about the enduring power of the symphonies Ludwig van ...

Though the modern listener may never know it, Beethoven composed after Haydn and Mozart, but not after Wagner and Brahms. Acknowledged as the reformer of the sonata form as used in the symphony, ...

The following article first appeared in 1999 as part of a nine-part series on the Beethoven symphonies, which was published in advance of a complete performance in O.C. by John Eliot Gardiner and his ...

It seems fitting that Beethoven composed his First Symphony at the dawn of a new century, 1799-1800, for even contemporaries realized that his symphonies changed the conception of the genre. Beethoven ...

The Fourth Symphony provided the listening public relief after the monumental 'Eroica' Symphony, and most popular Fifth Symphony. The Eighth Symphony follows the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Symphonies, ...

Whether Beethoven saved his best symphony for last is a matter of opinion. However, one can hang several descriptors on his Symphony No. 9, and “anticlimactic” isn’t one of them. If you’re performing ...

Beethoven’s Third Symphony marked the beginning of a musical revolution. It begins with two simple chords that completely surprised me last summer at the Bravo! Vail festival. I was working backstage ...