Past exhibition
Beethoven and the Art of Fugue
20 October 2022 to 29 January 2023
On the occasion of the motto "The Well-Tempered Clavier", which determines this concert season, the special exhibition focuses on Beethoven's lifelong preoccupation with the compositional principle of the fugue.
Beethoven had already become acquainted with Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier as a child in his music lessons - whether in Neefe's lessons, as he claimed in Cramer's "Magazin der Musik" in 1783, or earlier through the mediation of his later colleague in the court orchestra, Nikolaus Simrock, who as a music publisher had Bach's collection of preludes and fugues in all keys in his programme, remains to be seen. From this first youthful contact was to grow a lifelong fascination that led Beethoven again and again to the fugue. In lessons with his Viennese teachers, especially Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Beethoven acquired the systematic tools for constructing fugues, but even afterwards he consulted textbooks again and again to refresh or deepen his knowledge. Yet the fugue was not merely an intellectual gimmick. As Beethoven's oeuvre shows, he also knew how to set fugues masterfully. In the last ten years of his life, he even systematically incorporated fugues of various types into his work in order to create his own compendium of fugues - as a further development of and response to the famous collection of his Leipzig model. The exhibition traces Beethoven's preoccupation with fugue theory, but also reflects on fugue creation within his oeuvre.
Launch event
19 October 2022
Curator's tour with Dr. Nicole Kämpken
Sunday | 2022 October 30th | 6:30 pm
Tuesday | 2022 November 15th | 3:00 pm