In this episode, entitled The Age of Elegance & Sensibility, composer Howard Goodall looks at the age of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Chopin. This was an era – from 1750 to 1850 – in which composers went from being the paid, liveried servants of princes and archbishops to working as freelancers, who, most of all, needed to appeal to a new, middle-class audience. Or starve.
During the episode you can see the Sacconis playing Beethoven’s incredible and harrowing late work – String Quartet No.14, opus 131 (00:47:20) as well as a slightly more unusual arrangement of the song ‘Rocking All Over The World’ arranged for soprano and string quartet (00:09:30)!
Don’t worry if you didn’t see it, you can watch it again on BBC iPlayer here.