Kit Armstrong

Between 1800 and 1802, Beethoven experienced a deep personal crisis as a result of an ill-fated hearing disorder. This breakdown would turn his life and career upside down and eventually lead to his so-called Heiligenstadt testament. This was a crucial turning point in Beethoven's life: from great despair to a renewed creative force. Although Beethoven's inner struggle in 1802 was enormous, his Second Symphony reflects a powerful, almost combative energy, perhaps due to his determination to carry on. His First Piano Concerto dates largely from before this crisis and retains the lightness of his early style. In Piano Sonata no. 17, which Beethoven composed at the same time as his Second Symphony, he was able to develop an even greater radicalism because he was not bound by the symphonic style intended for a wider audience. In 2027 it is exactly 200 years since Ludwig van Beethoven died. During a three-year concert tour, conductor Jan Caeyers and American star pianist Kit Armstrong perform Beethoven's 27 most important concert works in all 27 European countries by 2027, the great Beethoven year. As in all concerts in the BEETHOVEN27 project, Kit Armstrong opens the concert with a Prelude and Fugue from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. This is not only a reference to the great significance this iconic keyboard music had for Beethoven, but also functions as an opening ritual to bring the players and audience into the right frame of mind. Kit Armstrong is considered to be one of the leading pianists of our time. Like Beethoven, he is both a piano virtuoso who has performed with the world's leading orchestras, and a prolific composer, having written over seventy works by the age of thirty. > Johann Sebastian Bach, Prelude and Fugue no. 1 in C, from the Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 846 > Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Concerto no. 1 in C major, Op. 15 > Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonata no. 17, Op. 31 no. 2, Der Sturm (The Storm) > Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony no. 2, Op. 36