Beethoven's Immortal Beloved

JESSICA DUCHEN (narrator)

VIV McLEAN (piano)

After Ludwig van Beethoven’s death in 1827, his secretary discovered in his apartment a passionate love letter addressed only to his ‘Immortal Beloved’.

Countess Therese Brunsvik von Korompa faces a dilemma. Everyone wants to know the identity of Beethoven’s mysterious love. Therese and her sister Josephine were pupils of the composer from 1799 and Therese has told a young writer that she herself is Beethoven’s lost love. But is she protecting somebody, concealing a tragic secret?

Jessica Duchen explores through Therese’s eyes a mystery that has enthralled generations of music lovers. Award-winning pianist Viv McLean performs extracts from Beethoven’s piano works connected with the Brunsvik family. Music and words are closely integrated, building the story together. The concert is based on Jessica’s novel Immortal, published in 2020.

BEETHOVEN:

• Bagatelle Op. 126 No. 3

• Piano Sonata Op. 81a, ‘Das Lebewohl’, first movement

• Andante favori, extract (given to Josephine)

• Piano Sonata Op. 57, ‘Appassionata’, first movement (dedicated to Franz)

• Piano Sonata Op. 78, first movement (dedicated to Therese)

• ‘Nimm sie hin denn, diese Lieder’ from An die Ferne Geliebte, transc.
Franz Liszt

• Piano Sonata Op. 110, final half – arioso and fugue

Jessica Duchen (author/narrator)

Jessica Duchen writes for and about music. Her dramatic works include the libretto for Roxanna Panufnik’s “People’s Opera” Silver Birch, commissioned by Garsington Opera and shortlisted for an International Opera Award 2018 (“Powerful and poetic…cinematic in its scope and fluidity” – The Times). Her novel Ghost Variations, based on the 1930s rediscovery of the suppressed Schumann Violin Concerto, was Book of the Month in BBC Music Magazine and was among the Daily Mail’s Best Reads of 2016 (“Thrilling” – John Suchet).

Jessica grew up in London and read music at Cambridge. She was a music critic for The Independent for 12 years, contributes to The Sunday Times and the i, and is the author of biographies of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Gabriel Fauré (Phaidon). She frequently narrates concerts based on her novels, which have been performed at the Wigmore Hall, the Sage Gateshead, the Buxton Festival, the Leicester International Music Festival, Kensington & Chelsea Music Society, Barnes Music Society and more. Other concert dramas include A Walk through the End of Time, introducing the Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time, and Being Mrs Bach, written for the Australian Festival of Chamber Music 2018. Jessica lives in London with her violinist husband and two cats.

Viv McLean (piano)

Viv McLean won First Prize at the 2002 Maria Canals International Piano Competition in Barcelona and has performed in all the major venues in the UK, as well as throughout Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA. He has performed concertos with orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Viva and the Scottish Concert Orchestra under the baton of such conductors as Wayne Marshall, Christopher Warren-Green, Owain Arwell Hughes, Carl Davis and Marvin Hamlisch. As a keen chamber musician he has collaborated with many groups including the Leopold String Trio, Ysaye String Quartet, Ensemble 360 and the Sacconi String Quartet as well as artists such as Natalie Clein, Daniel Hope, Guy Johnston and Lawrence Power.

Viv has appeared at festivals including the International Beethoven Festival in Bonn, the Festival des Saintes in France, Vinterfestspill i Bergstaden in Norway and the Cheltenham International Festival in the UK, and has recorded for Sony Classical Japan, Naxos, Nimbus and RPO Records. Viv has recorded regularly for BBC Radio 3 as well as for radio in Germany, France, Australia, Norway and Poland.

“Viv McLean revealed extraordinary originality, superb simplicity, and muscles of steel hidden by fingers of velvet. He plays with the genius one finds in those who know how to forget themselves, naturally placing themselves at the right point to meet the music, this mystery of the moment.” Le Monde (Paris)