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Inside the Hearing Machine
Ludwig van Beethoven

Tom Beghin

Inside the Hearing Machine

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Evil Penguin
UPC: 0608917721324
Catnr: EPRC 0025
Release date: 06 October 2017
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Label
Evil Penguin
UPC
0608917721324
Catalogue number
EPRC 0025
Release date
06 October 2017

"It felt like a multi-sensory laboratory."

Pianist, 11-5-2018
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Artist(s)
Composer(s)
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About the album

Inside the Hearing Machine: Beethoven on His Broadwood
Piano Sonatas Opus 109, 110, and 111
Tom Beghin, piano

Can we get into Beethoven’s creative mind, especially in the last phase of his life when he was coping with severe hearing loss? Tom Beghin’s new recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Opus 109, 110, and 111 is an artistic exploration of how Beethoven’s musicking was shaped by the work environment he created with the help of colleagues and friends.

Not only does pianist Tom Beghin perform Beethoven’s trilogy of pianistic masterpieces on a magnificent new replica of Beethoven’s Broadwood piano, he uses a reconstruction of the Gehörmaschine that was mounted on the composer’s piano so he could continue to create music as his hearing declined.

“You do hear better when you bring your head under this machine, don’t you?,” André Stein asked Beethoven. Two centuries later, we too can bring our heads under the machine and wonder: Do we hear Beethoven differently? Beghin draws us inside the hearing machine, where we feel as well as hear the essence of Beethoven’s rambunctious and irresistibly poetic musical vibrations. Inside the Hearing Machine invites us into the multisensory playground of a deaf composer for whom the machine was more than a hearing aid and who interacted with his instrument through much more than sound.

Hoor en voel Beethovens onstuimige en onweerstaanbaar poëtische muzikale vibraties
Is het mogelijk om toegang te krijgen tot Beethovens creatieve geest? En kan dat ook in de laatste fase van zijn leven, toen hij met ernstige gehoorproblemen kampte? Tom Beghins nieuwe opname van de Pianosonates Opus 109, 110 & 111 van Ludwig van Beethoven, is een artistieke verkenning van de manier waarop de muziekproductie van de componist gevormd werd door de (werk)omgeving die hij samen met collega’s en vrienden voor zichzelf creëerde.

In 1818 kreeg Beethoven een pianoforte van de Londense pianobouwer Thomas Broadwood. Tot aan het eind van zijn leven in 1827, zou Beethoven verknocht blijven aan deze mythische piano. Jammer genoeg leed de componist in zijn laatste levensjaren aan een toenemende doofheid. Gezocht werd naar een oplossing. Die werd gevonden in 1820, in de vorm van een gigantische 'Gehörmaschine', een soort overkapping bovenop de piano.

Beethoven bestelde deze machine bij pianobouwer André Stein, die op zijn beurt de hulp inriep van een lokale bliksmid. Stein garandeerde Beethoven dat hij met de machine in staat zou zijn om 'zelfs de zachtste geluiden te kunnen horen'. "U hoort toch beter als u uw hoofd onder deze machine brengt, is het niet", vroeg André Stein aan Beethoven. De componist hoorde, zag, maar voelde vooral de trillingen van zijn geliefde piano.

De Vlaamse pianist en artistiek onderzoeker Tom Beghin wilde weten hoe het toch zat met die 'gehoormachine'. Hij omringde zich met een team van specialisten om de machine te reconstrueren. Het resultaat: Beghin vertolkt de Pianosonates Opus 109,110 en 111 op een prachtige replica van Beethovens Broadwood. En dat niet alleen, hij maakt als eerste gebruik van een reconstructie van de gehoormachine. Nu, twee eeuwen later neemt Beghin ons mee naar binnen, de machine in, waar we Beethovens onstuimige en onweerstaanbaar poëtische muzikale vibraties kunnen horen én voelen.

Inside the Hearing Machine nodigt ons uit om de multi-zintuiglijke speeltuin te betreden van een dove componist, voor wie de gehoormachine veel meer was dan een hoorapparaat, en die op veel meer manieren dan alleen via geluid met zijn instrument omging.

Können wir uns in Beethovens kreativen Verstand hineinversetzen, besonders in der letzten Phase seines Lebens, als er mit einem schweren Hörverlust zurechtkommen musste? Tom Beghins neue Einspielung von Beethovens Klaviersonaten Opus 109, 110 und 111 ist eine künstlerische Auseinandersetzung mit Beethovens Musizieren in einer Arbeitsumgebung, die er mit Hilfe von Kollegen und Freunden geschaffen hat.
Der Pianist Tom Beghin führt Beethovens Trilogie pianistischer Meisterwerke auf einer neuen, großartigen Replik von Beethovens Broadwood-Klavier auf und er verwendet eine Rekonstruktion der Gehörmaschine, die auf das Klavier des Komponisten montiert wurde, damit Beethoven weiterhin Musik machen konnte, als sein Gehör nachließ.

„Man hört wirklich besser, wenn man seinen Kopf unter diese Maschine steckt, nicht wahr?“, fragte André Stein Beethoven mit Bezug auf die Gehörmaschine, die er auf Beethovens Broadwood-Klavier anbrachte. Zwei Jahrhunderte später können auch wir den Kopf unter eine Maschine stecken und uns fragen: „Hören wir Beethoven unterschiedlich?“ Diese Aufnahme lädt uns ins Innere der Gehörmaschine ein - dem multisensorischen Spielplatz des tauben Komponisten, für den die Maschine viel mehr als nur eine Hörhilfe war.

Artist(s)

Tom Beghin (piano)

Tom Beghin combines a career as performer with that of researcher and teacher. His published work spans different media, from commercially released CDs and films to academic essays and books. His work on Beethoven's 1803 Erard piano resulted in the book Beethoven's French Piano: A Tale of Ambition and Frustration (Chicago, 2022, winner of the American Musical Instrument Society's 2024 Nicholas Bessaraboff Prize) and a double CD (Evil Penguin Records, 2020, winner of the 2020 Caecilia Prize from the Belgian Music Press). The year 2017 saw the birth of Inside the Hearing Machine, an amalgam of publications on Beethoven's late piano sonatas and deafness. His monograph The Virtual Haydn: Paradox of a Twenty-First-Century Keyboardist (Chicago, 2015) followed his recording of the complete solo Haydn keyboard works (Naxos 2009/2011, nominated for...
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Tom Beghin combines a career as performer with that of researcher and teacher. His published work spans different media, from commercially released CDs and films to academic essays and books. His work on Beethoven's 1803 Erard piano resulted in the book Beethoven's French Piano: A Tale of Ambition and Frustration (Chicago, 2022, winner of the American Musical Instrument Society's 2024 Nicholas Bessaraboff Prize) and a double CD (Evil Penguin Records, 2020, winner of the 2020 Caecilia Prize from the Belgian Music Press). The year 2017 saw the birth of Inside the Hearing Machine, an amalgam of publications on Beethoven's late piano sonatas and deafness. His monograph The Virtual Haydn: Paradox of a Twenty-First-Century Keyboardist (Chicago, 2015) followed his recording of the complete solo Haydn keyboard works (Naxos 2009/2011, nominated for a Juno Award by The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences). He also co-edited Haydn and the Performance of Rhetoric (Chicago, 2007, winner of the 2009 American Musicological Society's Ruth Solie Award).
Alumnus of the HIP-doctoral program at Cornell University, Tom Beghin served on the faculties of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Schulich School of Music, of McGill University (Montreal). Since 2015, Prof. Beghin has been Senior Researcher and Principal Investigator at the Orpheus Institute for Advanced Studies & Research in Music, in Ghent, Belgium, and since 2024 holds a professorship again at KU Leuven. His research cluster, Declassifying the Classics, focuses on the intersections of technology, rhetoric, and performance.


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Composer(s)

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include nine symphonies, five piano concertos, one violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. Together with Mozart and Haydn, he was part of the First Viennese School.    Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob...
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Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include nine symphonies, five piano concertos, one violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. Together with Mozart and Haydn, he was part of the First Viennese School. Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn, and gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost totally deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life.

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Press

It felt like a multi-sensory laboratory.
Pianist, 11-5-2018

Tom Beghin plays the sonatas with a lot of energy and attention to detail ...
Luister, 19-1-2018

Beghins sparkling, some earthly performances fit perfectly with this less spiritualized Beethoven.
Klassieke Zaken, 17-11-2017

With the enhanced mechanism of his Broadway Fortepiano and the hearing machine that André Stein mounted on Beethoven’s instrument, Tom Beghin was able to use very special conditions for his recording. He provides a gripping sound in his elaborated performances. And so, this release offers unique illuminations for the three sonatas and guarantees an enriching experience even for those who normally prefer a modern grand piano.
Pizzicato, 11-11-2017

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