Zündstoff Beethoven

Although the idea of a musical ‘mainstream’ with Beethoven as a starting point or vanishing point is hardly valid any more, countless composers in the 20th and 21st centuries have also referred to Beethoven in their oeuvre or responded to him by creatively differentiating themselves from him. The present volume illustrates his enduring relevance by means of documents from the collections of the Paul Sacher Foundation.

The publication accompanying the exhibition of the same name in the Beethoven-Haus Bonn takes up the four topics presented there: ‘Learning and Teaching with Beethoven’, ‘Idealisations’, ‘Strategies of Reference’, and ‘Alienation – Dismantling’. The book will present the contexts, techniques and ideological approach of the Beethoven references of music makers of different provenance - the spectrum ranges from Anton Webern, Béla Bartók and Richard Strauss to Mauricio Kagel, Cathy Berberian and Kaija Saariaho.

The selected reception documents are shown in illustrations and accompanied by detailed commentaries. In addition, the individual chapters are preceded by introductory essays in which general aspects of Beethoven's recent reception are explained.