Lecture Series: Why Beethoven?

In a new partnership with the Santa-Barbara based Chamber Ensemble, Camerata Pacifica, we are presenting three lectures exploring the timeless influence of Beethoven. Discussions will led by leading scholars including  Jan Swafford, author of the new biography and study, Beethoven, Anguish and Triumph.

A product of the Enlightenment and of the French Revolution, Beethoven reached maturity as man and artist while the Napoleonic wars ravaged Europe. Invaded repeatedly by the French, Vienna was ultimately to suffer from within under repressive police rule. These regimes and epic, destabilizing conflicts created the modern world. How did they impact Beethoven’s view of society, his sense of self and his music? Today his music is so iconic it has lost much of its impact, but just how radical was it in his time, and how has his music influenced the composition and reception of that which followed?