HE BIRTH OF ROMANCE

Two special themes will run through our 2020 festival: this year is our 30th festival, and the world is celebrating the 250 years since Ludwig van Beethoven was born. Honoring Beethoven, we want to use the birth of Romanticism by drawing lines both backwards and forwards in music history from the German master. The festival will zoom in on his life and work as well as on those who inspired him and those were were inspired by him. Bach and Mozart are obvious geniuses, but they also mark the end of the stylistic eras that they were born into - eras that they brought to their apex and glorious end. Beethoven was different: he opened doors that are still banging and refuse to be closed.

But where did Beethoven come from, who worked with him and at the same time as him, and who picked up the baton? Beethoven is frequently locked into a caricature of the
Romantic character in unending struggle for truth and
resolution, but he was also capable of composing with a light pen and writing elegant works where you can hear clear inspiration from his two great idols, Händel and Mozart. These two we shall also hear this year, like many others from this golden era.