Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a string quartet late in life, entitled ‘A Song of Thanksgiving’ after he recovered from an illness. This ‘prayer of thanks’ expresses his joy in life. It shows a mature, grateful view from a composer who had lost his hearing!
We'll hear music from Kevin Puts and Richard Danielpour - two living American composers we're thankful for on this edition of What's New!
Don't miss the Nashville Symphony playing music by Richard Danielpour, and insights from Kevin Puts for his Naxos release with the Peabody Symphony and conductor Marin Alsop.
Lento Assai was commissioned by the Cypress Quartet as part of its Call and Response commissioning project, a program through which composers write works inspired by masterpieces in the standard repertoire. My piece was to be placed between Beethoven’s Quartet op. 135 and Mendelssohn’s Op. 13 quartets. Like Mendelssohn, who drew deep inspiration from the late quartets of Beethoven and in some cases quoted them literally, I found a wellspring of ideas flowing from the slow movement of Beethoven's Op. 135.
What’s New is a production of WBAA Classical, a listener supported broadcast service of Purdue University.
