5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Beethoven – The New York Times

In the past, we’ve asked some of our favorite artists to choose the five minutes or so they would play to make their friends fall in love with classical music, the piano, opera, the cello, Mozart, 21st-century composers, the violin, Baroque music and sopranos.

Now we want to convince those curious friends to love the stormy, tender music of Beethoven, who was born 250 years ago this month. We hope you find lots here to discover and enjoy; leave your choices in the comments.

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Joshua Barone, Times editor

Forget that famous portrait of Beethoven, scowling with arched eyebrows and Medusa hair. For all its anguish, his music teems with hope. The seemingly inescapable low point of the Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat (Op. 110), a resigned arioso, gives way to a wondrous fugue. Later, that arioso’s darkness returns — a reminder, even a relapse — but is fought off by majestic chords. Then the fugue resounds anew, marked in the score as “gradually coming back to life.” The melody soars ever higher, riding a crest of euphoric runs. Back to life, indeed.