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The events of Beethoven's life are the stuff of Romantic legend, evoking images of the solitary creator shaking his fist at Fate and finally overcoming it through a supreme effort of creative will. His compositions, which frequently pushed the boundaries of tradition and startled audiences with their originality and power, are considered by many to be the foundation of 19th century musical principles.

Born in the small German city of Bonn on or around December 16, 1770, he received his early training from his father and other local musicians. As a teenager, he earned some money as an assistant to his teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe, then was granted half of his father's salary as court musician from the Electorate of Cologne in order to care for his two younger brothers as his father gave in to alcoholism. Beethoven played viola in various orchestras, becoming friends with other players such as Antoine Reicha, Nikolaus Simrock, and Franz Ries, and began taking on composition commissions. As a member of the court chapel orchestra, he was able to travel some and meet members of the nobility, one of whom, Count Ferdinand Waldstein, would become a great friend and patron to him. Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792 to study with Haydn; despite the prickliness of their relationship, Haydn's concise humor helped form Beethoven's style. His subsequent teachers in composition were Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri. In 1794, he began his career in earnest as a pianist and composer, taking advantage whenever he could of the patronage of others. Around 1800, Beethoven began to notice his gradually encroaching deafness. His growing despondency only intensified his antisocial tendencies. However, the Symphony No. 3, "Eroica," of 1803 began a sustained period of groundbreaking creative triumph. In later years, Beethoven was plagued by personal difficulties, including a series of failed romances and a nasty custody battle over a nephew, Karl. Yet after a long period of comparative compositional inactivity lasting from about 1811 to 1817, his creative imagination triumphed once again over his troubles. Beethoven's late works, especially the last five of his 16 string quartets and the last four of his 32 piano sonatas, have an ecstatic quality in which many have found a mystical significance. Beethoven died in Vienna on March 26, 1827.

Beethoven's epochal career is often divided into early, middle, and late periods, represented, respectively, by works based on Classic-period models, by revolutionary pieces that expanded the vocabulary of music, and by compositions written in a unique, highly personal musical language incorporating elements of contrapuntal and variation writing while approaching large-scale forms with complete freedom. Though certainly subject to debate, these divisions point to the immense depth and multifariousness of Beethoven's creative personality. Beethoven profoundly transformed every genre he touched, and the music of the 19th century seems to grow from his compositions as if from a chrysalis. A formidable pianist, he moved the piano sonata from the drawing room to the concert hall with such ambitious and virtuosic middle-period works as the "Waldstein" (No. 21) and "Appassionata" (No. 23) sonatas. His song cycle An die ferne Geliebte of 1816 set the pattern for similar cycles by all the Romantic song composers, from Schubert to Wolf. The Romantic tradition of descriptive or "program" music began with Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony No. 6. Even in the second half of the 19th century, Beethoven still directly inspired both conservatives (such as Brahms, who, like Beethoven, fundamentally stayed within the confines of Classical form) and radicals (such as Wagner, who viewed the Ninth Symphony as a harbinger of his own vision of a total art work, integrating vocal and instrumental music with the other arts). In many ways revolutionary, Beethoven's music remains universally appealing because of its characteristic humanism and dramatic power. ~ Rovi Staff

Wilhelm Schuchter was one of those prodigiously talented German conductors who had the misfortune to live in a time filled with geniuses at the podium: Furtwangler, Walter, Abendroth, Karajan, Krauss, Bohm, Knappertsbusch, Kempe, Schmidt-Isserstedt, and Klemperer. In such company, he never had a chance to move into the forefront of his profession outside of Germany. Despite his lack of international success, however, Schuchter managed to leave behind one major recording of Lohengrin that deserves to be a part of any serious Wagner collection.

Born in Bonn, Germany and educated at the Hochschule for Music, where he studied with Hermann Abendroth. He made his debut at the podium in Coburg, in 1937, conducting Cavelleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci. His first major appointment came that same year, as conductor in the opera house in Wurzburg, where he stayed for three years. In 1940, he took an appointed conductor at the opera house in Aachen, a post he held for two years, working under Herbert Von Karajan. Two years later, he joined the Berlin State Opera.

Following the Allied victory and the reorganization of German cultural life, in 1947 Schuchter joined the North German Radio Orchestra as a conductor and deputy to Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt. His major recording career began soon after, principally for EMI during the late 78 r.p.m. and early LP era. With the Berlin State Opera Orchestra, he recorded highlights--in an era when complete opera recordings were rare--from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, and The Abduction From The Seraglio, Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, Puccini's La Boheme, and Bizet's Carmen, among other operas. With the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, he recorded excerpts from Richard Strauss's Rosenkavalier and Johann Strauss's Fledermaus. These were all polished recordings, well representing key portions of the operas involved. As an orchestral conductor, Schuchter recorded Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, Smetana's The Moldau, and Grieg's Peer Gynt.

His major activities, and his most significant legacy, however, were in the operatic field. In 1953, Schuchter conducted EMI's first recording of a complete version of Wagner's Lohengrin, with his Northwest German Radio Orchestra, with Rudolf Schock in the title role, Gottlob Frick as King Henry, Maud Cunitz as Elsa, and Josef Metternich as Friedrich. This performance, reissued on compact disc in 1995 by EMI on its References historical line, remains one of the most finely crafted recordings of the opera ever down, and competitive with all subsequent stereo and digital recordings. The singing has a warmth and power that resounds more than 40 years later, and the playing is extraordinary, a match for any orchestra in the world. Moreover, the sound--despite being limited to mono--is extraordinary for its era, being both rich and close.

Unfortunately, Schuchter never got to record another complete opera, eclipsed at he was outside of Germany by figures such as Karajan and Klemperer. His career in the concert hall was more successful--in 1958, he took a three year appointment as the chief conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, and after his return to Germany in 1962 he was made music director of Dortmund. It was in this post, in just three years, that Schuchter achieved fame in Germany, raising the musical standards in Dortmund so high that he was promoted in 1965 to artistic director and general manager of the Dortmund State Opera. He remained in this position for the rest of his life, and Schuchter was acclaimed for the excellence of the productions mounted by the company, and its overall rise to prominence within Germany. His Wagnerian performances, in particular, were singled out for praise by critics.

Schuchter was among the first generation of conductors in Germany who understood the use of the orchestra in the studio, and this is reflected in his recordings. In contrast to Wilhelm Furtwangler or Hans Knappertsbusch, he saw the intrinsic value of recording and he paid special attention to the spaciousness and opulence of the sound he achieved. When working with sympathatic producers and engineers, as on his Lohengrin, the results were extraordinary. ~ Bruce Eder