WilkommenWelcome to the 2007 Beethovenfest Bonn! We hope you like everything about Britain because this year's annual Beethoven festival program will highlight Beethoven's influence with the Land of Tea-Time, Worchester sauce, and lol crumpets lol.
Titled, "Joy! -- Beethoven and the British Cultural Sphere," (A Schiller "Ode an die Freude"-inspired name) the festival will thusly showcase British conductors and artists -- such as the Philharmonia Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis, and Sir Neville Marriner with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
Beethovenfest Bonn 2007 will be held from August 24th to September 23rd, 2007, and will feature 61 performances, featuring works by Henry Purcell, Edward Elgar and Benjamin Britten, in addition to contemporary British composers.
Although Beethoven never actually made a visit to England, biographers assert that he had great desire to travel there. Beethoven suffered from Anglophilia. How sexy. He was inspired in one symphonic work by the Duke of Wellington’s 1821 victory ("Wellingtons Sieg oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria"), where one can find allusions to both "Rule Britannia" and "God Save the King."
Indeed, Beethoven had very special ties with The Royal Philharmonic Society. In 1827, it was documented by one of the Directors:
[...] "When the Society learnt that Beethoven was both ill and much in need of money, the Directors decided that a sum of £100 should be sent to him 'to be applied to his comforts and necessities'. The money, held up en route, reached him only a few days before he died, but time enough for him to express his heartfelt appreciation to the Society. Schindler, his amanuensis, reported that 'the Society had comforted his last days, and that event on the brink of the grave he thanked the Society and the whole English nation for the great gift, God bless them.'"