Beethoven has long been regarded as a great composer, but lesser understood is that he was also an exceedingly political artist.

In this three-session course, taking place 250 years after the composer’s birth in 1770, William Kinderman, Chair of UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, will explore Beethoven as a civically engaged thinker faced with a lifetime of severely tumultuous events including the French Revolution, the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Congress of Vienna among them. While popular studies of Beethoven have emphasized the impact of his personal suffering and inner struggles, Kinderman investigates the musical tensions in the artist’s work that reflect the political turbulence of the era.

Kinderman will use his most recent book, Beethoven, as the basis of this course and will perform extensively from his studio to illustrate his lectures, including parts of Sonate pathétique, the “Appassionata” Sonata, the Diabelli Variations, and the final Sonata op. 111. Kinderman will show how Beethoven’s idealism and zeal for resistance have ensured that masterpieces such as the Ninth Symphony continue to inspire activists around the globe, how the Fifth Symphony helped galvanize resistance to fascism, how the Sixth has energized the environmental movement, and how Beethoven’s civic engagement continues to inspire in politically perilous times. This course will elucidate how the inherently political nature of Beethoven’s music explains its power and endurance.

Uncertain times call for ardent responses, and, as Kinderman convincingly affirms, Beethoven’s music is more relevant today than ever before.

Tentative syllabus is as follows:

Dec 3: From the outbreak of the Revolution to the Eroica: Beethoven’s revolution in music
Dec 10: Leonore as “Angel of Freedom” and Beethoven’s utopian symbolism
Dec 17: Beethoven in the era of political reaction and the legacy of the Ninth Symphony worldwide

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