21. "If you have tears, prepare to shed them now."

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Do you think that classical music is not for you and you don't know where to start? Or maybe you're a fan already and would welcome a fresh approach. You've come to the right place. Perfect pitch is for everyone, beginners or experts, whatever your age. Lend Nick Healy Hutchinson your ears for his weekly dose of classical music that will enrich your life.

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There's a popular myth, because I think it really does have to be a myth. But Mozart had a special version of the flute. But with only one comment and a letter to his father in 1778 to support this, in which he bemoans the instrument. And that's much more likely to have been a heat of the moment of petulant jibe in protest of not being paid for a commission, which happened to involve the flute. It's hard to believe that he would write two flute concertos, as well as a whole opera with the name flute in its title, if he really loved it so much. Moreover, it becomes impossible to believe when you hear music like this. The combination of flute and harp for a concerto was certainly a novel one. Of all the instruments most widely associated with celestial bodies in art, the harp features on any other. And celestial is really the only word that you can properly use to summarize the Andantino, the slow movement of its flute and harp concerto. In just a matter of seconds, the flute follows the harp with a melody which you could only describe as heavenly. What an absolutely glorious tune it is. It reminds me of that anecdote that when the celestial bodies play for the Almighty, they play the music of Bach, that when playing amongst themselves, they play the music of Mozart. Conducted by Claudio Erbardo, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra accompanies Emmanuel Barud on the flute and Marie-Pierre Langlemer on the harp, in the Andantino, the second movement, from Mozart's flute and harp concerto. It's another heavenly tune, beautifully sung here by Mark Padmore with the English concert conducted by Andrew Mancy. Because it's really very easy to enjoy it for what it is. But what we're about to listen to now does need some explanation, and it's a perfect example of how difficult it is to talk about music. You will know by now that I am no expert, no musicologist, just an amateur enthusiast. But Beethoven gets my vote as being one of the most influential people ever to walk the planet. The simple truth is that he threw away the rule book, and nothing in music, perhaps even the wider art, was the same after him. I remember the precise moment I first heard his music. I was taken as a young child to one of the early Charlie Brown films based on one of the greatest cartoonists, Schulter, along with Linus and Snoopy the Dog, Schroeder is Charlie Brown's closest friend. But the other passion in Schroeder's life is Beethoven. He is, you might say, nuts about him. Those of you who remember those cartoons will know why I've chosen that word. During the film, Schroeder plays the slow movement from the Pathetic sonata, and I went home resolved to learn that piece of battling the two outer movements came some years later. This became something of a pattern for me. Oh, I could play that, only to discover that Beethoven rarely composed a simple standalone work. Everyone knows by now that Schubert is my favourite composer, and yet if I had to single out the composer who has had the greatest impact on me in so many ways, it would have to be Beethoven. Aware that my wife may listen to this at some point. In the context of classical music, I'm minded to replace the word music in John Miles' famous lyric to read Beethoven was my first love, and he will be my last. Why so? It may sound hokey, but in Beethoven's music you have everything of what it means to be human. Beethoven's irascibility, temper, sartorial obliviousness, hopeless love life, manifold dwellings, and general defiance of almost everything are well known. As is his near thirty years' struggle with deafness, surely the cruelest possible affliction for a musician. All of these traits and frustrations are writ large in his music. Never before has the personality of a composer been so glaringly exposed in his output, be it symphony, concerto, sonata, overture, choral, or chamber. All his music articulates life itself. Lest you feel tempted to charge me with spewing out sentimental nonsense, let me try and demonstrate it with a piece of music with which you may not be familiar. Beethoven wrote sixteen string quartets, a format first used by Haydn, then developed by Mozart. Conveniently, these fall into three periods in his life early, middle, and late. And it's the slow movement of one of the late ones, number 13, which sums up humanity more than any piece I know. That's because the cavertina, as it's known, has no obviously identifiable tune that will leave you humming it later. It's not so much about melody, it's about feeling. Marked molto espressivo. You may not get it at first, I didn't, but after a few lessons you will want to submit to its profound and ineffable beauty, yearning for it to go on when it comes to a sudden halt. At its centre is a steering violin, the music soon engulfs you in this heart-wrenching blanket of tenderness. About halfway through comes a brief and very noticeable choke, a change of tempo, and it's widely believed that the blotch on the original score is a teardrop from the composer himself. And remember, Beethoven could only hear these notes in his head. He couldn't try it out on a keyboard. Composed less than two years before he died, you can feel the aching sorrow of his condition, but also a sense that after all the bang crash wallop we tend to associate with Beethoven, this more than anything else and he wrote some truly gorgeous slow movements is the purest assumption of the man his music, his life, and by extension humanity itself. If that consigns me to Sue's corner, well, show me the way. You need to listen to this to submit yourself to it completely. I'm afraid you can't do anything else. It's the only way. The Cafatina, the slow movement from Beethoven's stringquarter number thirteen, is played here by the Lindsay's.

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That's it for now. Thank you for listening to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson. He'll be back again next week with some more treasures for you. So please do join in then. And you can subscribe to this podcast by clicking on the link below.