Hashtag Beethoven250
Gary Oldman brings his typical intensity to playing noted intense dude, Ludwig Van Beethoven.
Classical music lovers (there are dozens of us!):
The California Symphony, located here in fine Walnut Creek, CA, will be streaming four free shows this fall and is starting a week from Saturday with an hour-long performance (2 whole sonata opuses!) celebrating Beethoven's 250th Birthday. He will be playing Sonata No. 30 in E Major Opus 109 & Sonata No. 21 in C Major Opus 53, which I’ve put in a playlist below.
Related:
Glenn Gould (playing Sonata 30) was also a notoriously intense dude, if you’re into that sort of thing you should check out Genius Within or Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould, both of which are rife with wild anecdotes, including oral histories of his weird classical music beef with Leonard Bernstein. Thirty Two is modeled on Bach’s Goldberg Variations, so there’s that, too.
According to Wikipedia Daniel Barenboim (playing Sonata 21) is a polyglot and a self-confessed Spinozist, which are both definitely tidbits, but he’s also a dynamite pianist imo.