Wednesday 28 September 2011

LOST BEETHOVEN WORK BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE


Well, this is a nifty old bit of paper to come across: a Beethoven masterpiece that was thought to be lost in its full and original form is to be played for the first time in over 200 years, after it was reconstructed from the composer's original sketches.

The slow movement of Beethoven's String Quartet in G, Opus 18 Number 2 was composed in 1799, but was discarded straight after it was written. A German music scholar who goes by the name of Sieghard Brandenburg unearthed detailed sketches made by the legendary composer as part of a research project back in 1977.

30 years later, Barry Cooper, a music professor at the University of Manchester, has put the original sketches together so that the movement can be heard for the first time since Beethoven's day. Let's have an educated listen.

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