Classical Music in Focus: Late Beethoven

On this course you will learn how to make sense of Beethoven's late works, which are often comparatively difficult to listen to.

You will also learn about the social and cultural history of Beethoven's day, the reception of Beethoven's music, and also about the emergence of musicology (the academic discipline of music), which was heavily shaped by the ideas around Beethoven's late works.

Course Programme (may be subject to some modification)

1. ‘Lateness’ and its Limits

As an introduction to the topic of ‘Late Beethoven’, we start out by discussing ‘lateness’ and what we think that means for a composer and their music. We’ll explore where the idea came from, especially its roots in biographical explanations for how composers write their music.

2. Reception

Beethoven’s late works are now highly valued, but it was not an inevitable development. Many of the late works had very difficult lives after Beethoven’s death, some of them not entering the repertoire until the 20^th century (and even then only reluctantly). We’ll think about some of the challenges these pieces presented that made them difficult to engage with.

3. New Interests

Here we look at all the aspects of Beethoven’s music that seemed new to his contemporaries. These are the shifts in his style (e.g. scale, harmony, formal oddities, counterpoint) that made people think that the works from his last decade should be discussed separately from the earlier work.

4. Continuities

For all that Beethoven’s late work is distinctive and exciting, it also did not spring from nowhere. Some aspects of the late works were already in evidence as part of earlier ones, sometimes even serving as themes that bring together all of Beethoven’s output. We’ll discuss which narrative seems more important to us now: the idea of a shift for the late works, or a continuous development.

5. Piano Works

The next few classes address the specific repertoires of pieces that Beethoven wrote in his last decade. We start with the piano works, and we will focus in particular on questions of scale and ‘completeness’: how does Beethoven make a piece feel in some sense ‘finished’? Does it always work?

6. Missa Solemnis

As one of the largest works of Beethoven’s output, the Missa Solemnis demands a lot from its performers and listeners. We’ll explore the challenges that it poses, but also have a think about its content from a spiritual perspective. It is often described as a ‘humanist’ work, but modern scholarship has shown that Beethoven’s Christian thought goes a lot deeper than previously assumed.

7. The Ninth

The ‘Ode to Joy’ section of the last movement of the Ninth Symphony is one of the most famous pieces of classical music of all time. It represents Beethoven’s own political stance, which has already shifted by the time he reached his last decade. It also went through a number of political afterlives of its own after his death, in ways that might shock or disturb us now.

8. String Quartets

The ‘last’ of any composer’s work always attracts special attention, and these pieces are no exception. Beethoven devoted his last years to a genre of music that already had a reputation for being the height of sophistication, taking it to even more obscure intellectual heights. These pieces became especially entangled with Beethoven’s biography, and indeed may have been the source of a tripartite sense of his output in the first place.

9. Scholarship

Beethoven’s late work proved especially important for the emerging tendency across Europe to treat music as an object of academic study. With their extreme challenges to performers and listeners, these pieces allowed professionalising practitioners to justify the need for research. Many of the threads that came out of the engagement with Beethoven’s work continue to inform the shape of the modern academic discipline of Musicology.

10. Critical Approaches

The central position that Beethoven occupies in the world of classical music has not gone unchallenged. Many critics have emerged over the years, with a wide range of motivations for questioning Beethoven’s place in the ‘canons’ of music. Issues of gender and race have come to the fore in recent times, suggesting that Beethoven’s position in the world is once again up for renegotiation. It is very unlikely that Beethoven’s music will ever end up ‘cancelled’, but there are some interesting things that we could do to think differently about it nonetheless.

Dr Bruno Bower is a lively and enthusiastic tutor whose love of music is infectious. He is a musicologist, performer, composer, and music editor, as well as a highly experienced teacher. He has taught at Cambridge University, University of Surrey, Brunel University, and the Royal College of Music, and his innovative teaching methods have been recognised by Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. Alongside his courses at Imperial, he currently teaches at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. 

He has written and presented on subjects as diverse as Gilbert and Sullivan, John Cage, and Victorian polymaths, and he is the General Editor for critical editions of music by Peter Gellhorn and Norman O’Neill, as well as editorial consultant on the AHRC-funded ‘Music, Migration and Mobility’ project at the RCM. He is also the principal oboist of West London Sinfonia and the cor anglais player for Chelsea Opera Group.

Rate Categories and Discounts

Standard Rate

• Available to all except those who fall under the Internal Rate or Associate Rate category.

Internal Rate

• Current Imperial College students and staff (incl. Imperial NHS Trust, Imperial Innovations, ancillary & service staff employed on long-term contracts at Imperial College by third-party contractors)
• People enrolling under our Friends & Family scheme
• Alumni of Imperial College and predecessor colleges and institutes, including City & Guilds College Association members
• Students, staff and alumni of the Royal College of Art, Royal College of Music and City, UAL and the City and Guilds of London Art School
• Students, staff and Governors of Woodhouse College and the IC Mathematics School

Associate Rate

• Austrian Cultural Forum staff
• Co-operative College members
• Francis Crick Institute staff, researchers and students
• Friends and Patrons of the English Chamber Orchestra
• Friends of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens
• Friends of Leighton House/ Sambourne House
• Friends of the Royal College of Music
• Harrods staff
• Historic Royal Palaces staff
• Lycee Charles de Gaulle staff
• Members of the Friends of Imperial College
• Members of the Kennel Club
• Members of the London Zoological Society
• Members of the South London Botanical Institute (SLBI)
• Members of the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
• National Health Service (NHS) employees
• Natural History Museum staff
• Residents of postcodes SW3, SW5, SW7, SW10 and W8
• Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council staff
• Royal Geographical Society staff
• Science Museum staff
• Staff of Exhibition Road Cultural Group (Discover South Kensington) organisations
• Students (non-Imperial College)
• Teachers and other staff of UK schools
• The American Institute for Foreign Study
• Tutors and other staff of institution members of the Association of Colleges
• Tutors and other staff of other universities and higher education institutions
• Victoria and Albert Museum staff

Late enrolment

It is possible to enrol on many of our adult education courses after the course has already started. For non-language courses this is subject entirely to agreement by the tutor. For language courses it is subject to agreement by the language coordinator conducting level assessment. If you want to join a course late do bear in mind there might be work you will need to catch up on, particularly in language courses.

Friends and Family Scheme

This course is eligible for allowing Imperial College students and staff to share their discount with their friends and family.

Enrolment via the blue booking link is open. Early-bird discounts are available until the end of 30 September 2024

Enrolment and payment run through the Imperial College eStore. When enrolling:

• Do check on the drop down menu above called "Course Fees and Rate Categories" to see if you are eligible for a discounted rate and also do make sure you select that rate when enrolling on the eStore
• If you are a first-time eStore user you will need to create an account before enrolling. You can do this by entering an email address and password. This account can then be used for any future enrolments via the eStore.

When you have enrolled you will be sent the following email notifications:

If you have any questions about the academic content or teaching of this course please contact the Course Tutor, Dr Bruno Bower, b.bower@imperial.ac.uk

If you have any questions about your enrolment or payment processes please contact the Programme Administrator, Christian Jacobi, eveningclass@imperial.ac.uk