Pianist brings lifelong dream to concert stages

For Canadian pianist Heather Taves, the idea of performing the complete Beethoven sonatas was always on the back burner.

“When I was in my late 20s, I learned a bunch of Beethoven sonatas thinking that I would do this someday,” said Taves in an interview.

“And then I’m like, oh, wait a minute, I’m in my 60s. This is someday.”

Learning and performing all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas is no easy feat. Only 135 pianists in history have accomplished it.

But for Taves, someday has indeed arrived. She spent the past year learning, memorizing and performing all the sonatas, which totals over 10 hours of music.

On Wednesday evening, Taves performed a recital of Beethoven in Halifax at the Peggy Corkum Music Room as part of the Scotia Festival of Music Chamber Series.

The festival’s artistic director, Simon Docking, introduced the concert with a humorous twist: “Unfortunately, she won’t be playing all 32 of them tonight.”

The program, curated by Taves, featured five sonatas that Beethoven dedicated to women in his life. These women included patrons, students, lovers, a renowned concert pianist — even a young woman who, as a child, had once dumped a pitcher of water on Beethoven’s head while he practised.

Taves began the monumental task in September 2023, a year after retiring from Wilfrid Laurier University’s music faculty, where she was a piano professor for over 25 years.

Originally from P.E.I., Taves returned to Charlottetown after retirement, and soon embarked on a project inspired by her doctoral work on Beethoven in the 1990s at Stony Brook University in New York.

When she began, Taves had already learned just under half the sonatas, but there were some she had to “redo” because she hadn’t played them in decades. There were a few other sonatas she had taught but never performed, and the rest were brand-new to her.

She spent a year learning the music and performing it in 10 house concerts. She plans to spend her 2024-25 performance season touring all of the sonatas in public venues, and Halifax was on the list.

“In this concert, I’m trying to explore how precisely and affectionately he crafted sonatas for women in his life,” said Taves.

“And by this, I do not mean his love interests. If you look in music history and you see only the finished products, then you see the men sign their name to them. But I think if you look at process, if you look at sketches and who, you know, organized the concerts, who played them, who performed things, who built the pianos, who commissioned works, what did they ask Beethoven to do? Then you see women playing a huge role.”

Docking said the decision to host Taves in the Scotia Festival of Music Chamber Series was an easy one.

“As a programmer, I think the crucial thing for me is, obviously, you want to program music that’s going to be interesting and that’s going to appeal to people,” he said.

“But I think more and more, people really love the story behind things. And so, as somebody who’s putting together the series, I really love being able to present people who are coming up with interesting perspectives and telling interesting stories through the music that they play.”

Taves writes about her project online on her blog Beethoven Journey, where she has posted nearly every Sunday since September 2023.

Audience member Sian Iles had already come across the blog before buying her ticket, and said this made her even more excited to attend the concert.

“I love her take on things,” said Iles. “I’ve listened to many, many pieces of music recorded, but to hear them live just gives them a completely different dimension.”

After hearing Taves perform, Iles was enthusiastic.

“I love the tone that she brings out of that piano,” said Iles. “It’s all just been fabulous.”