Ludwig van Beethoven has been portrayed as the figure who inaugurated musical “modernity” by turning music into an “autonomous” art form, liberated from its previous servitude to the church, as well as to the aristocracy. Nicholas Chong (Rutgers University) will discuss how his recent book, The Catholic Beethoven, challenges this conventional narrative. The composer was shaped by the German Catholicism of his time to a greater extent than has long been thought. Understanding the nature of Beethoven’s engagement with Catholic ideas also requires that we jettison a familiar but overly simplistic conception of the Enlightenment as the supersession of traditional religious belief by reason and individual freedom.

On Monday, April 13, at 6 PM, join Morningside for a presentation by Professor Nicholas Chong (Rutgers) on The Catholic Beethoven.