Coda

by Jonathan Biss

For as long as he can remember, acclaimed pianist and writer Jonathan Biss has been obsessed with the late works of composers like Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Schubert, written in the last years of their lives. What’s eluded him is why a young person by modern standards is so fixated on that final phase. Coda is Biss’s intimate interrogation of expression (both his heroes’ and his own) and a powerful ode to music’s ability to communicate the ineffable—even, one might say, a last word.Pianist Jonathan Biss shares his talent, passion, and intellectual curiosity with classical music lovers in the concert hall and beyond. This season Biss continues his latest Beethoven project, Beethoven/5, for which the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra has co-commissioned five composers to write new piano concertos, each inspired by one of Beethoven's. In 2016-2017 Biss began examining, both in performance and academically, the concept of a composer's “late style,” and has put together programs of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Britten, Elgar, Gesualdo, Kurtág, Mozart, Schubert, and Schumann's later works, both for solo piano and in collaboration with the Brentano Quartet and Mark Padmore. In early 2017 he released the sixth volume of his nine-year, nine-disc recording cycle of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas. Biss studied at Indiana University and at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he joined the piano faculty in 2010. He led the first massive open online course (MOOC) offered by a classical music conservatory, "Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas," which has reached more than 150,000 people in 185 countries, and he will continue to add lectures until he covers all the sonatas. His bestselling eBook, "Beethoven’s Shadow," published by RosettaBooks in 2011, was the first Kindle Single written by a classical musician. Cover design by Adil Dara.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

32 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 1, 2017

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful essay on the late works of Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert. Biss is heartfelt and sincere about his personal relationship to these pieces, revealing both his passion for the music and his Woody Allen-ish personal insecurities. This is rather endearing, considering his enormous talent as a musician and music educator. (Check out his Coursera courses on the Beethoven sonatas.) He is a fine writer as well.

[Hannah Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant insight

How I wish I was younger and still studying music. I would have quoted this essay at every given opportunity. An extremely honest exploration of how the works of Brahms, Beethovem and Mozart. Wonderfully written. Bravo!

[Rod · Rating 4 out of 5]

"To love music - to feel that it expands the possible - is to be a person who lives internally. To be a person whose deepest solace lies not with other people, but in the imagination."

[Simon Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

By bizarre coincidence, today is two years to the day since I read Biss's A Pianist Under the Influence. I had forgotten how well he writes. This is Biss's 30-odd page essay on his relationship with composers' "late" works. He writes with astonishing enthusiasm and clarity, and with some really inventive turns of phrase. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insular Bliss

Biss captures the essence of the musician's experience with lucid observation and deft feeling. I am grateful that he "describes his feelings" towards great works with reverential awe for their creators, yet, stays relatable and down to earth. Fascinating read.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful essay. Lots to chew on. I might assign this to my MUS 2401 class.