Transformation and Threnody: Beethoven and Shelley

Beethoven and Shelley, two stars of the first magnitude, were seen to their best advantage in 1821, when they beamed downThree-and-thirty Transformations and Adonais respectively.

Professor Boyde explains: I had already taken the first steps towards a semi-staging of Shelley’s Adonais, when my friend and collaborator John Bryden let fall that he was preparing a performance of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations.

A whole series of coincidences suddenly emerged. Both artists were revolutionaries. The works were written at the same time. Both have sustained passages of sublimity which ‘smile on despair’. Both have titles which give little clue as to their content and nature.

The more John and I talked it over, the more we became convinced that the two works belong together—almost like a binary ‘star / that ‘beacons from the abode where the Eternal are’.

We feel sure that a Cambridge audience will be moved by our intimate recital, offering about a third of each work, and that the experience will send them back to the thirty-threeVeränderungen, op. 120 and the fifty-five stanzas of Adonais, an Elegy on the Death of John Keats.

There's a limit of 2 places per booking.

Reserved places (unnumbered) will be held only until 7.20pm.

Further information from Prof. Boyde ([email protected]). Please notify him if you have to cancel your booking on the day.

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Host or Publisher Prof. Patrick Boyde