1^st and 2^nd Thursdays at the Concord Community Music School

The Bach’s Lunch Series, running from November through June, offers free, informal lunch-hour lectures the first Thursday of every month and a related concert the following Thursday in the Music School’s Recital Hall, 23 Wall St., downtown Concord. On January 8th, Birgit Matzerath, a member of the CCMS piano faculty, will present a lecture entitled " Beethoven’s Last Sonata: Rooted in the Past, Pointing to the Future.” The following Thursday, January 15th, Ms. Matzerath will return to perform a program entitled "Music of Bach, Beethoven & Schoenberg: Beyond Space and Time," which includes not only this sonata, the final work of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas, but also works by J.S. Bach and Arnold Schoenberg. Both the lecture and concert begin at 12:10 p.m. and end by 12:50 p.m.

In the January 8^th lecture, Ms. Matzerath will offer listeners a brief overview of Beethoven’s life and work as well as a "road map" for following the unusual form of the piece.  She will then focus on the modes of expression Beethoven uses in the piece, which were considered quite extreme at the time and reach far beyond the time period in which he was writing.  In fact, the programming of the Schoenberg work on the January 15^th concert, which was composed in the early 20^th century, will allow the listener a chance to hear the compositional influence Beethoven had on music nearly 100 years into the future. Similarly, the contrapuntal, or imitative, writing, in much of the Beethoven work reveals a direct compositional connection to the Bach Prelude and Fugue on the January 15^th concert, which was composed a century earlier.

The Bach’s Lunch Series received a 2007 Best of NH Award from New Hampshire Magazine, named as an Editor's Pick - “best place to bring a brown-bag lunch.”  The Bach’s Lunch series is sponsored by The Duprey Companies; The Couch Trusts, TD Banknorth, N.A., Trustee; and The Timothy and Abigail B. Walker Lecture Fund.. Call 603-228-1196 for information, or visit the website http://www.ccmusicschool.org.

In the January 8^th lecture, Ms. Matzerath will offer listeners a brief overview of Beethoven’s life and work as well as a "road map" for following the unusual form of the piece.  She will then focus on the modes of expression Beethoven uses in the piece, which were considered quite extreme at the time and reach far beyond the time period in which he was writing.  In fact, the programming of the Schoenberg work on the January 15^th concert, which was composed in the early 20^th century, will allow the listener a chance to hear the compositional influence Beethoven had on music nearly 100 years into the future. Similarly, the contrapuntal, or imitative, writing, in much of the Beethoven work reveals a direct compositional connection to the Bach Prelude and Fugue on the January 15^th concert, which was composed a century earlier.

The Bach’s Lunch Series received a 2007 Best of NH Award from New Hampshire Magazine, named as an Editor's Pick - “best place to bring a brown-bag lunch.”  The Bach’s Lunch series is sponsored by The Duprey Companies; The Couch Trusts, TD Banknorth, N.A., Trustee; and The Timothy and Abigail B. Walker Lecture Fund.. Call 603-228-1196 for information, or visit the website http://www.ccmusicschool.org.