Deaf explosion

Beethoven’s heroic forcefulness as he finally lost his hearing, and the testament of Brett Dean.

The Heiligenstadt Testament, written by Beethoven in 1802, is one of the most heart-rending testimonies in the history of music. In it, the genius from Bonn wrote about his despair as his deafness took over. Coinciding with this episode, Beethoven began sketching out his revolutionary Symphony no. 3, "Eroica", which transcends in singularity and ambition any other written beforehand. The Heiligenstadt Testament has fascinated other musicians over time, like the Australian Brett Dean, who in 2008 wrote Testament simulating, with techniques that distort the sound, how Beethoven would have “heard” the instruments. Robert Treviño will conduct this striking programme joined by the eminent Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky to perform one of the most complicated concerts of the repertoire, Prokofiev’s Concerto for piano no. 2.