Cathy's Art Diary

Excellent online lecture   from the Foundling Museum looking at Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze as part of their music and art series. Sarah Jaffray, an art historian, led us through what was   happening in art in Vienna around 1900 and the role of the Secession movement. She described their HQ building which the frieze was shown and explained how it was a radical space for showing art. She then talked about why the movement was attracted to Beethoven even though this was more because of the image of him in Mahler’s novel “A Pilgrimage to Beethoven”. This led to the 14th Secession exhibition being devoted to the composer to mark the 75th anniversary of his death, focused on a sculpture of him by Max Klinhen. The frieze decorated an anti-chamber to the sculpture and Jaffray led us though the iconography of it in some detail.

Fascinating exhibition at the British Library looking at the life and work of Beethoven through his manuscripts. I must admit to not knowing a lot about Beethoven but this show made you feel very close to him and gave you are real sense of him as a person not just a musical genius. The commentary states that they saw handwriting as “a visual representation of creative imagination” and I thought this was an innovative premise for an exhibition. The show was chronological but there was also a theme running though of the growth of ideas for what would become the Ninth Symphony starting with initial plans when he was in Bonn I found it very moving to see his musical sketchbooks for recording and working out ideas as well as manuscripts in his own hand. However more intimate were the account books and kitchen account. I loved some from his time in Vienna which record payments to Haydn for lessons as well as for dancing lessons. There was a good section on his relationship with ...