Beethoven and the Piano | Beethoven & Romanticism

Jan Swafford, speaker 
Clayton Stephenson, piano 

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 30 in E, Op. 109

Noted author and composer Jan Swafford and Van Cliburn International Piano Competition finalist Clayton Stephenson discuss and demonstrate Beethoven's extraordinary late piano music and the development of his piano writing over his lifetime. Parallel to the evolution of his pianistic voice was the evolution of the piano itself—from the smaller, delicate instruments of his youth (in Mozart’s era), through his acquisition of a more robust French Érard, to the far more powerful British and Austrian pianos that sparked his epochal final works including the Hammerklavier Sonata, Diabelli Variations, and the final sonatas opp. 109-111. A continuing theme will be the individuality of each major work for the keyboard. With each piece Beethoven in effect remade the piano, the sonority of each as significant as the notes on the page.