Forms of Freedom

Underpinning the project is a wish to explore the relationship between Form and Freedom in Beethoven’s music. He is perceived primarily as an iconoclast, whose striving for personal artistic freedom went hand in hand with a global political message of liberty. At the same time, he developed a strong musical form that was able to contain and deliver his expressive power, and set a canonical standard that remained unquestioned by many of his 19th-century successors. We wish to explore our own space of freedom by challenging conventional perceptions about the scoring and performance context of Beethoven’s music, and hope to discover new dimensions to his expressive power and the universality of his message. Beethoven's scores will not be treated as untouchables, but adapted to the context in order to achieve a more convivial musical experience. We will use historical and new arrangements to deliver the 9 symphonies in a 'form' that you have never experienced before.