An interview with Jennifer Kloetzel

Your love of Beethoven goes way back, doesn’t it?

I was eight when my teacher put the first movement of the Second Sonata on my stand. I was baffled, and then a few weeks later in a class there was a pianist, so I got to hear it with piano for the first time. That was the beginning of my true obsession with the cleverness of Beethoven. It’s like layers of an onion that you peel back; I’ll dig and dig, pieces I’ve played over and over again, and I’ll notice something I hadn’t before.

Why did you want to include the Op. 17 Horn Sonata?

Most people release the three sets of variations and the five sonatas and that makes perfect sense. I was just digging around and I noticed some people included other things, and that made me turn the page and look a little further. When the Horn Sonata was sent to the publisher, a cello part accompanied it that Beethoven apparently wrote. It’s a little bit simpler sounding than the other sonatas, but it really made sense to me to fit it in.

Why did you choose the ‘Conquering Hero’ title?

It’s funny – when I was first trying that on for size, people thought it sounded like ‘here we have Kloetzel and Koenig, the Germans conquering!’.

But it comes from the opening work, the Handel Variations.

It’s all about triumphant joy, not vanquishing people. Of course, Handel was one of Beethoven’s heroes, so it’s a nod to all of that. Yes, there are dark moments in these pieces, but overall my feeling about them is that they’re something fabulous that we should all spend time and behold.