Ludwig van Beethoven's despair over losing his hearing is best chronicled in his Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter written to his brothers that lays bear his emotional and psychological state. It's a plea for understanding; a quasi-last-will-and-testament even though he was only in his early thirties, and hopeful turn away from suicide in order to keep making his art.
John Dickson and Louisville Master Chorale perform this Sunday a concert that revolves around this theme of struggle, and finding hope and illumination in Of Gods and Gifts.
In this interview, Dickson gives us the starting point: a 2018 work by Jake Runestad, inspired by the Heiligenstadt Testament, and connecting it with Beethoven's own overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, Johannes Brahms' Schicksalslied (Song of Fate), and another contemporary work, Elaine Hagenberg's Illuminare.
