Beethoven: The Sonatas for Violin and Piano, Volume 2 - Robert Mann & Stephen Hough

stephen hough beethoven vol. 2 liner notes

One of the many reasons for Beethoven's popularity lies in his heroism, and in our sympathy for his acts of defiance through faith. Faced with overwhelming odds Beethoven shook his fist at adversity and, with magnificent arrogance, declared. "power is the morality of all men who are above the common. and it is mine." Such an assault on convention is somehow part and parcel of a confidence which nearly but never quite collapsed under the stress of both material pressures and deep spiritual torment. Mozart was quick to advise his contemporaries about this wild untutored phoenix saying, "keep an eye on him. he will make a noise in the world." Yet even Mozart could not imagine the sort of noise Beethoven would make or the manner in which his creative genius would roar and reverberate around the universe for eternity. Mozart was an Apollonian genius who created his memorable beauty within an inherited and accepted framework. Beethoven. on the other hand, questioned all tradition and. dismissed as being "raw, gnarled, and unfinished" and a destroyer of form, suffered the loneliness imposed on all true pioneers. In this sense there is a world of difference between Mozart and Beethoven; between a composer of formal grace and perfection and a composer whose hammer and chisel blows are still visible on the marble of his greatest masterpieces.