Richard Bratby

Inspired programming and a proper celebration: Barbican’s Beethoven Weekender reviewed

The individual performances were as characterful as their conductors

issue 08 February 2020

Beethoven wears a feather boa and pink shades. He wrangles an electric guitar. A red lightning flash streaks across that familiar, scowling face. ‘Genius before Elton. Radical before Prince. Iconic before Bowie’ proclaimed the posters for the Barbican’s Beethoven Weekender, and apparently there’ve been complaints about them, which probably means that they’ve got the tone about right. Two hundred and fifty years after his birth, Beethoven still has a way of driving all the right people round the bend. US campus musicologists have called for his music to be suppressed (you’d think that champions of inclusion would support a year-long celebration of a disabled composer, but it seems not. Wrong chromosomes). Last month, EU groupies tried to co-opt him to the Remain cause and ended up putting the permatanned Dutch cheesemonger André Rieu at number one, in a slightly unfortunate self-own.

The brilliant thing about the Beethoven Weekender was that it felt like a proper celebration.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in