Sunday, December 4, 2011

BEETHOVEN - The Life and Creation of the Great Composer

Beethoven's Origins and background

Born on the 16th December 1770 at Bonn, Beethoven is thought about to be a amazing composer who, through his whole creation, fully contributed to the development of the universal music and the improvement of genres and musical forms. His brother and grandfather were musicians of the court in Bonn and small Ludwig, whose talent came to light since they was four, was destined to the same career. They studied with different teachers the piano, organ, violin and viola, excelling at playing the first.

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At the age of 11 they became the pupil of the composer Christian Gotthof Neefe, organist and band master of the court, who not only broadened his musical background, but also encouraged him to compose. Though they was still a kid, they soon became Neefe's assistant at the organ, as well as in the Elector's personal theater orchestra and of some other families, being later hired as a band master.
With the help of the Elector and some other noble families from Bonn they was sent to study in Vienna where they had as teachers Haydn, Albrechtsberger, Schenk and Salieri. Here, they was first remarked as a expert pianist, gifted with an unusual expressive power, which allowed him to present his own creations.


Character and persona

His artistic persona was doubled by a passionate and unflinching temper which didn't let him be intimidated or humiliated. Though they was supported by a series of noblemen, they didn't service somebody, defending ceaselessly his position as an independent professional musician. They is the first great example of this in the history of music, but the conditions of the feudal settlements were to obstruct him in finding the material stability and peace of mind to freely compose, until the finish of his life.
Contemporaneous with the Italian Revolution from 1789 and the national independence current, which tormented the European peoples in this period, they understood the time's call and expressed the new ideas of freedom, equality and fraternity, becoming a fighter through art, to accomplish humanity's most noble aspirations.
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Having appeared in the Viennese Classicism's magnificent period, represented by Haydn and Mozart, they determinedly took over the achievements since, creatively developing them, widening the frame of the classic forms, using new templates, more suitable to the contemporary way of thinking and feeling, bringing in music the force of an impetuous dynamism which passionately revealed the dramas of the human existence. Also, through his language and through considerably increasing the number of the orchestra's instruments they contributed to the extraction of the music out of the saloons' privacy.
Musical Creation

According to Harold Schonberg, Beethoven's creation can be divided in periods of time:

   A first period including about0 works is marked by the appeal to elderly forms, but prefigures the explosive force to come, here, eloquent examples being the minuet from the 1st Symphony, which prepares the future scherzos or slow motion from the Sonata for piano opera ten no. three, with a writing characterized by a direct affective involvement, proposing an romantic tune.
  The second period begins with the 3rd Symphony when Beethoven appears as an professional of form, who establishes his own rules, the type of sonata being the that was to decide the creative evolution of the composer.
  The third period includes the last chords quartets, the piano sonatas "Diabelli Variations", "Missa Solemnis" & the 9th Symphony when music is written not to be to someone's liking, but to justify his artistic & intellectual existence, appealing to ideas & symbols.
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Beethoven's Legacy
Through his whole attitude towards music it is natural that he gave a direct programmatic significance to a quantity of his works, among which the most important are: The 3rd Symphony in C major op. "Eroica", The 5th Symphony in A minor op. 67, The 6th Symphony in D major op.68 "Pastorala", The 9th Symphony with choir & vocalists in B minor op. 125, the overtures "Coriolan", "Egmont" & "Leonora".

His creation also covers: the opera "Fidelio", the ballet "Prometheus' Beings", the scene music for the drama "Egmont" by Goethe, "King Stephen" & "Athena's Ruins" by Kotzebue, vocal-symphonic works like the oratorio "Jesus on the Olive Mountain", "Fantasia for Piano, Choir & Orchestra", "Missa solemnis", concert works (a concert for violin, romances for violin, concerts for piano, treble concert for piano viola & cello), various vocal parts accompanied by orchestra, fanfare music, works for various instrumental room formations (from trio to octet, where the chords quartets are an important stage in this type's literature), a giant number of instrumental compositions among which there's ten sonatas for violin & piano, four sonatas for cello & piano, a sonata for horn & piano, 32 sonatas for piano (The Sonata in A major op. 53 "Waldstein", The Sonata in D minor op.57 "Appassionata")etc.

His creation seems even more impressive thinking about that this genius was struck by deafness since he was 29, affection which became total after about a decade, stopping him from singing in public. The pains caused by this disease & the multiple sentimental & relatives disappointments determined him to gradually isolate from the world but didn't cease him from becoming of the most loved figures in the history of music.

The difference between Beethoven & other great composers who preceded him is that he thought about himself an artist & stood up to defend his rights. He was an artist, a creator & that is why he thought about himself superior to kings & aristocrats.

That's all we could possibly said about the thorough life and creation of Ludwig Van Beethoven ^_^

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