Playing music by Ludwig van Beethoven presents a multitude of challenges. He was very specific in his scores, often accentuating surprising notes and requesting sudden changes in character. Beethoven himself was an impressive pianist, and the keyboard parts he wrote are very technically demanding. His works also occupy a singular position in the history of music. They contain an unprecedented level of individual expression on the part of the composer, a quality that helped Beethoven lead the transition to the Romantic era. But he still liked to employ perfectly balanced Classical forms and structures, and it requires great nuance and sensitivity to communicate these refined elements of style alongside the passionate extremes with which Beethoven is often associated.
This subtle equilibrium is one of the things that pianist Evren Ozel strives for when learning new chamber works by Beethoven. He is in the latest group of musicians chosen for the Bowers Program, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s three-year artist residency, which integrates select young performers into every facet of the organization’s activities. His first CMS concert, in April of 2024, included Beethoven’s so-called “Gassenhauer” Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano. He explained to me how preparing that concert impacted his approach to the composer’s music: “Beethoven is a composer who puts emotions and feelings into his pieces to an extreme degree. If it’s happy, it’s really, crazy happy. I had internalized that as an invitation to be wild, wherever! I don’t think that’s invalid in certain respects, but there’s also a lot of structure and organization in Beethoven that makes those extremities in emotion and feeling come out even more pointedly. I was working with [CMS Artistic Directors] David Finckel and Wu Han for that engagement, and certain things we did in rehearsal were about playing more in time and cleanly. That had a long-term effect of shaping the character into something more convincing. There was a lot of learning going on throughout the rehearsals, which was amazing.”
On Tuesday, July 8, Ozel plays another early work of Beethoven, the Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op. 1, No. 1, as part of CMS’s Summer Evenings series. The piece involves a similar combination of Classical form and proto-Romantic feeling: “Early Beethoven is still in the Classical idiom, but there are so many surprises written in,” Ozel explained. “There are some moments in the E-flat major Trio that are, in my view, some of the most sad and lonely things that Beethoven ever wrote. There’s already a clear spirit of Beethoven in this music that you don’t find in Mozart or however many of J. S. Bach’s children were running around writing pieces at end of the 18th century.”
Pianist Sahun Sam Hong, who is also a current member of the Bowers Program, described striking a similar balance. “I try to let the texture and musical architecture be my guide,” he explained. “When the structure is Classical—that is, proportioned, symmetrical—I stay clear and delineated. But in places where the phrase blooms freely, I follow that wholeheartedly.” For the Summer Evenings program on July 19, he joins CMS wind players for Beethoven’s 1796 Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat major. Hong described how the piece “mostly feels rooted in symmetrical proportions, but there are plenty of lovely spun-out melodies and also amazing, shocking Beethovenian elbow-jabs and twists.”
This quintet, like so many of Beethoven’s early works, features a very virtuosic piano part. Indeed, there is an anecdote from Beethoven’s time of the composer himself playing the work and frustrating his fellow musicians by interrupting the proceedings to improvise showy cadenzas. I asked Hong about the risks of stealing the show as the pianist when playing chamber music by Beethoven, but he expressed faith that something in his music makes it all work out: “I trust in Beethoven’s masterful writing, in the flexible nature of the parts, and in the skillful weaving and blending of the musicians themselves—one of my absolute favorite things about playing in CMS concerts! The extremely high standard of playing, commitment, professionalism, and trust on stage has led me to try and inspire colleagues in other concerts I play in the same way.”
Like her fellow pianists in the 2024–27 Bowers Program cohort, Anna Geniushene will be performing Beethoven this summer on a CMS concert. Together with violinist Franciso Fullana and cellist Sterling Elliott, she will present Beethoven’s so-called “Kakadu” Variations for Piano Trio in a program on July 22. She admitted that “these variations are a bit of an oddity in Beethoven’s catalog. That’s part of what makes them so interesting. The piece is based on a slightly silly theme [‘Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu’ or ‘I am the tailor Cockatoo’] from a comic opera, The Prague Sisters, by Wenzel Müller. The variations show a lighter, more playful side of Beethoven. He takes a simple comic theme and transforms it into something much deeper, mixing humor with real emotion. It reminds us that Beethoven was not only a great genius, but also a human being who enjoyed surprises and fun.”
The variations uniquely span Beethoven’s early, middle, and late periods of composition: scholars think he probably first imagined the piece in the early 1800s, but he didn’t complete it until the mid-1810s or publish it until 1824. Geniushene suggested that his music “always asks for a balance between Classical clarity and Romantic expression. Some early works I approach with a more Classical style, while the later ones invite a more Romantic spirit. In the ‘Kakadu’ Variations, I usually try highlighting the humor and elegance of the Classical style, while also giving space for deeper emotions, especially in the slow introduction.”
Geniushene has relished her time in the Bowers Program, and she is looking forward to a varied upcoming season of engagements with CMS. “I especially enjoy the interesting, carefully thought-out thematic programs. I love discovering so much new repertoire that challenges and inspires me as a musician—not to mention the other musicians’ outstanding level of artistry.” She, like Ozel and Hong, is excited to work with new colleagues to find the right blend in Beethoven and in all of the repertoire she is scheduled to play with CMS in the next year. “With experience and years of working on this music, you learn how to find the right balance. Early Beethoven is often very virtuosic and brilliant for the piano. But in chamber music, it’s important to stay connected with your partners and not just focus on your own part. The real magic of chamber music happens when the energy is shared, and Beethoven gives everyone moments to shine.”
