‘Janine Jansen’

Beethoven was born on 17 December 1770. The famous violinist Janine Jansen, and Denis Kozhukhin – winner of the 2010 Queen Elisabeth Competition – join the party to mark the German composer’s anniversary. Their recital includes Beethoven’s Seventh Sonata for Violin and Piano, a contrasting piece first performed in 1802, the year of the Heiligenstadt Testament, in which the composer spoke of the increasing deafness that would contribute to his isolation. “Frei aber einsam” (‘free but lonely’) could have been Beethoven’s motto, but it was that of violinist Joseph Joachim, to whom Johannes Brahms dedicated his sonata composed on the musical notes matching the acronym F-A-E. Shostakovich’s Sonata for Violin and Piano ends this programme with the characteristic intensity of the Russian composer.