Beethoven at 250: ‘The distillation of an utterly untamed personality’

• Author: Sinéad Doyle
• Published date: 09 December 2020

MARINA CARR, Irish playwright My favourite work is the Cavatina from String Quartet No 13 in B flat, I play it incessantly. Virginia Woolf wanted to be buried to it. Apparently this Quartet was the last music he completed before he died. I find it moody, ethereal, suffused with the Eternal and the otherworldly. Amazing to think he was deaf when he wrote it. Or maybe not amazing at all, as Derek Jarman said when he was going blind: "If Beethoven could write the Ninth without hearing, I'm certain I could make a film without seeing." And he did. Blue. I adore it and think I always will. I play it when I work and I play it when I play. Happy 250th Maestro! Gratitude for the beauty you have left us.

A feeling of wellbeing, high-octane freshness

JOHN KINSELLA, composer and Ireland's most prolific symphonist in the 20th century There is one movement in all of Beethoven's output, the first movement of his A minor String Quartet, Opus 132, which has been a special part of my life for over 70 years. To this day it fills me with a feeling of wellbeing and high-octane freshness. It also has the calm strength of experience and points to a landscape of unlimited expressive possibilities.

These days I can't get it out of my head

TOM CREED, theatre and opera director My favourite work is Gott, welch Dunkel hier, from Fidelio. It took 10 years to rebuild the Vienna State Opera after the second World War, and it reopened on 6th November 1955 with a performance of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, conducted by Karl Böhm. On 7th October 1989, it was performed in Dresden on the 40th anniversary of the founding of East Germany, while protests raged nearby, and the audience applause after the famous prisoners' chorus brought the performance to a halt. Four weeks after that night, on 9th November, the Berlin Wall came down. What is it about this opera that speaks to us at times of great change around this time of year?

There's a moment at the beginning of the second act where the political prisoner Florestan has a vision of his beloved Leonore, who, unbeknownst to him, has come to the prison in disguise to liberate him. He imagines her as an angel who will lead him to freedom - "zu Freiheit, zu Freiheit". The German word "Freiheit" means personal freedom, but also political freedom. There's a recording of the great Canadian tenor Jon Vickers singing this defining role of his, where he suddenly speeds up, just as he repeats this word for the last time. "Freedom, freedom." It's the thrill of daring to imagine, even for a moment, that another reality is possible. These days, I can't get it out of my head.

The symphony of our time, full of intensity

Dr PATRICK GEOGHEGAN, professor in modern history at Trinity College Dublin and presenter of Talking History on Newstalk "I love the string quartets, early period, middle period, and late, and thought I would pick one of them. But the truth is that whenever I am feeling in need of inspiration I return to the symphonies. For this I'll pick the Seventh Symphony, not because it is the greatest of his works, but because it is a symphony for our time, full of intensity and passion and hope for the future. It inspires us to try and do better. It makes us believe we can overcome, no matter what the challenge.

There's hardly anything better

HE MRS DEIKE POTZEl, German ambassador to Ireland Beethoven's wonderful, complex, emotional music keeps bringing a lot of joy to my life and has in times of the current pandemic filled some long evenings with its tremendous beauty, mastership and warmth - lifting spirits, touching soul and heart. As I am a huge fan of the piano, my favourite piece would have to be Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor, Op 37. Each time, I am so touched by its beauty, richness, joy, elegance and forcefulness. The agitated first and third movements bridged by the exquisite, lyrical Largo -...