“I spent the better part of December celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday by listening to all (and I mean all) of his music. It was a restorative couple of weeks,” writes Michael Andor Brodeur in Saturday’s (1/30) Washington Post. “After a year of ceaseless tumult and cultural vertigo … even the darkest, least familiar halls of his music offered a wall to lean on. A standing structure. From there I made an abrupt gear-switch into the present, listening to brand-new works by dozens of contemporary composers…. The unfamiliar contours of hours of unheard music provided a fitting score to the unprecedented political upheaval of the new year. The sounds of the future in the making—revealing itself in each instant as though a flashlight were passing over it—offered a solace that surprises seldom do…. The arts as we know them are going to face more than just recovery in the post-pandemic era. They need active protection…. If anything, this music that has survived the centuries feels more fragile, more vulnerable than ever. The past 12 months have made one thing clear to me: Take nothing for granted. Stand guard for the things we share.”
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