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Beethoven and the guitar (with Izhar Elias)

Izhar Elias - Guitar

Eva Stegeman - violin

Ivàn Iliev - viola

This original and appealing programme presents works of Beethoven in chamber music arrangements with guitar, written by contemporaries, a practice that was quite common in the period, playing its role in the popularisation of the music. Eminent guitarist Izhar Elias plays on several period instruments, including a rare "terz" instrument, smaller in size and tuned a minor third higher in order to achieve a more brilliant sound. He is joined by violin end viola.

Izhar Elias (Amsterdam, 1977) was awarded with the prestigious 'Dutch Musicprice' on March 20th 2011 during a concert with the Residentie Orkest. He is the first guitarist in the history of this award, which is the highest dutch award for a classical music musican to be given by the dutch Ministry of Culture.

 

 

The guitar is not the first instrument one associates with the towering figure of Beethoven, but he did know and appreciate the instrument, and even wrote some chamber music pieces for it. This imaginative recital of chamber music by Beethoven takes its inspiration from the Romantic poem of the album title which describes the kind of unattainable love to which Beethoven was throughout his adult life susceptible, and from which he appears himself to have drawn creative energy. His own setting of Adelaide (the text of which appears in the booklet in both Matthisson's original and in English translation) was arranged by the 19th-century guitarist-composer Nicholas Coste.

Programme:

Adelaide, Op. 46 – Ludwig van Beethoven
Potpourri for Flute and Guitar on themes of Beethoven – Anton Diabelli
Serenade for Violin, Viola and Cello in D major, Op. 8 – Ludwig van Beethoven Grand Trio Concertant op 45 – Molino