The Working Process Video (DVD)

The Working Process Video(VHS/DVD). The Second and Third Leonore Overtures offer an invaluable insight into Beethoven’s working methods, the process by which he created, and his attitude toward his music. How did Beethoven unite the themes and chromatic progressions, the colors, contrasts, and rhythms, the melodic lines and sudden outbursts and final resolutions together into an organic, structured whole? In the Second overture, he tried to describe the dramatic events of the opera, discarding the sonata form. But in the Third overture, he returned to the sonata form to create an instrumental music drama in its own right. Some critics, including Wagner, prefer the more lyrical Second. Barenboim explains Beethoven’s intense interest in form and why he thinks the Third shows Beethoven, the master of form, at his greatest. (28 minutes)