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Ludwig Van Beethoven, a titanic German composer of the Classical and Romantic eras
He began to play in public when he was 22 years old. In 1796 he went to Berlin to play before the King.
He was almost 30 years old when he wrote his first symphony (the great "C Major").
His works include nine symphonies, plus many piano sonatas, string quartets, and piano concertos, as well as a violin concerto, and an opera (Fidelio). His best-known works are often referred to by names: the Eroica (3rd Symphony), the Pastoral (6th Symphony), and the Choral (9th Symphony), and the Moonlight Sonata.
Beethoven expanded the expressive capabilities of the symphonies, sonatas, and chamber music. A wonderfully original and creative composer, he bridged the classical and romantic eras of music.
From 1801, he increasingly suffered from deafness which became total by 1824. Thus he never himself heard some of his final works that he wrote in the last years of his life.
Moonlight Sonata
by Ludwig Van Beethoven
Beethoven's Vow
"I shall seize Fate by the throat; it shall certainly not bend and crush me completely."
-- Ludwig van Beethoven, letter to F G Wegeler, 1801
Beethoven: The Universal Composer (Eminent Lives)
Beethoven: The Universal Composer (Eminent Lives)
Amazon Price: $17.15 (as of 12/16/2009)
Best Beethoven Biography Available
Unlike other books by Mr. Morris, this accurate biography of Beethoven's life is based on fact instead of vivid recreation of fiction. This book is poignant and very descriptive and goes as far as updating facts about Beethoven's life (based on serious and ardouos research), something other scholars had avoided. There are tons of metaphors contrasting Beethoven's compositions with the current literary movement of the time: Sturm und Drang, and this gives the reader a chance to delve in into German-Austrian society of the time and how the subject interacted with it. It is a book both witty and funny, capable of arousing serious doubts among intellectual circles for the author discusses Beethoven's supposed homosexuality and his misathropy without having much evidence for the former. I highly recommend this book simply because it is descriptive, well written and hillarious ( I couldn't stop laughing at the way Mr. Morris suggested how picky and obstinate Beethoven was--all in a witty way). For those who do not have a background in classical music, music theory to be more specific, this book would prove to be challenging--reading Classical Music for Dummies will suffice as an introduction for this splendid piece of research.
Beethoven Composing At Home
Beethoven Music on CD
25 Beethoven Favorites
Amazon Price: $4.98 (as of 12/15/2009)
Beethoven: Piano Concertos 1-5
Amazon Price: $24.97 (as of 12/15/2009)
Beethoven: Symphonies 5 & 7
Amazon Price: $10.99 (as of 12/15/2009)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 / Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Amazon Price: $10.99 (as of 12/15/2009)
Beethoven - The Complete String Quartets / Alban Berg Quartet
Amazon Price: (as of 12/15/2009)
Beethoven - 5th Symphony
Conducted by Herbert von Karajan
Beethoven's Letters
Beethovens Letters
Amazon Price: $11.53 (as of 12/15/2009)
Beethoven: A Look Behind the Notes
As a pianist, teacher, adjudicator, examiner, critic and author, I am often presented with performances of Beethoven's works that offer no insight or understanding of Beethoven the man or his music! When giving master classes, I encourage students to read his letters and analyze his music before attempting to perform it. Most consider Beethoven an unpleasant, angry, reclusive human being! Beethoven's letters prove these thoughts to be totally invalid! When writing to his brothers (Heiligenstadt Testament),Beethoven shows an essence of lament because he is so distraught about the false opinions of others toward him. In his letter's we find the true essence of this great man.
Beethoven was a man of morality, truth, and beauty very much like Schubert. Beethoven's deep love of nature is well-known and well documented in his letters and shows in his music too! He was a deeply religious man. Beethoven's attitude may have been more of conventional Catholic ecclesiastical views, but as his letters show, there are countless evidences of his spirituality.
In Beethoven's letter's the fundamental differences are clear. I feel the most important ones are these:
Purity. There is never one single moment of something demonic or unhealthy in his music.
Dignity. He is always completely honest in his music. And there is never a trace of something that might be interpreted as self pity. Pain and sorrow, yes, but nothing to suggest that he ever felt sorry for himself.
His letter's convey a very good guess that Beethoven's deafness may have been a result of his attempts to press his excellent hearing sense to the extreme in order to gain the ultimate understanding of music! The reading of Beethoven's letters is paramount for those who truly want to know the essence of the man and how to approach performing his music!
Beethoven - 9th Symphony ("Choral")
Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Amazon Price: $21.97 (as of 12/15/2009)
"A key problem with the Ninth, Cook notes, is that we've heard it so often that we no longer truly hear it. This book is an antidote; by examining the difficulties the work has caused auditors right from its premiere, Cook undermines our facile familiarity." - Bernard D. Sherman, Fanfare
Beethoven's Handwriting (the "Heiligenstädter Testament")
Program Notes on Famous Beethoven Works
- Symphony No. 3, in E Flat ("Eroica"). Op. 55. (Beethoven)
- Beethoven first projected the Third Symphony in 1802 and finished it in 1804. "Eroica" is likely to mislead the hearer if he supposes the music to be of a martial character, and we therefore add the complete title of the work as it first appeared in print: "Sinfonia Eroica, composta per pesteggiare il sovvenire di un grand' Uomo, dedicata," etc.; ("Composed to celebrate the memory of a great man"), namely, the hero in its widest sense.
CLICK ON ABOVE LINK TO READ FULL NOTES ON THIS WORK - Symphony No. 5, in C Minor. Op. 6 (Beethoven)
- The C minor Symphony is probably the best known and most admired of the nine, perhaps because it is the most human in its qualities. Beethoven himself has left us a clue to its meaning, namely, that it pictures the struggle of the individual with Fate, the alternations of hope and despair, and the final triumph. In speaking of the first four notes of the opening movement, Beethoven said, some time after he had finished the symphony : "So pocht das Schicksal an die Pforte" ("Thus Fate knocks at the door").
CLICK ON ABOVE LINK TO READ FULL NOTES ON THIS WORK - Symphony No. 6, in F ("Pastoral"). Op. 68. (Beethoven)
- This symphony, in fact, is the masterly expression of that happy and contented feeling which the lover of Nature experiences during a ramble in the country. The motives employed are apparently of the simplest kind, but demonstrate the evolution of intense thought. They are short and close in design and to a great extent lean on the tones of the hunting horn.
CLICK ON ABOVE LINK TO READ FULL NOTES ON THIS WORK - Symphony No. 9, in D Minor ("Choral"). Op. 125. (Beethoven)
- The Ninth, or "Choral," Symphony, written in 1823, the last of the immortal group, stands prominently out among all other works of its class by its combination of voices and instruments. Before its compositions, Beethoven had been preparing the way such a reunion. In the Choral Fantasie written in 1808, he advanced upon the idea by employing a chorus in the Finale; but in the Choral Symphony he made a still bolder advance and introduced a chorus with variations on a colossal scale. There is a striking resemblance between the two in the choral parts, and Beethoven himself describes the symphony as being "in the style of the Pianoforte Choral Fantasie, but on a far larger scale." Schiller's "An die Freude," the "Ode to Joy," was selected by Beethoven for the Finale.
CLICK ON ABOVE LINK TO READ FULL NOTES ON THIS WORK
Life of Beethoven in Pictures
Show the World You Love Beethoven!
Higher World
"Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend."
-- Ludwig van Beethoven, quoted by Bettina von Arnin, letter to Goethe, 1810
Beethoven on CD - The Top 5
My recommendations of the best recordings of the best Beethoven
- Beethoven - The Complete Symphonies
- Listener comment: "Truly powerful playing! Still the best complete cycle of symphonies you can buy, remastered with love and care."
Performed by Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Herbert von Karajan
- Beethoven - Complete Piano Concertos
- Listener comment: "Kovacevich is (in my humble opinion) the most remarkable Beethoven pianist alive."
Conductor: Bernard Haitink, Sir Colin Davis
Performer: Stephen Bishop Kovacevich, Arthur Grumiaux
Orchestra: BBC Symphony Orchestra, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam
- Beethoven - Violin Concerto
- Listener comment: "Beethoven's violin concerto is in my opinion the best recorded ever."
Conductor: Andre Cluytens, David Oistrakh
Performer: David Oistrakh
Orchestra: Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française, Philharmonia Orchestra of London
- Beethoven - Complete Piano Sonatas
- Listener comment: "Beethoven's piano sonatas were one of humanity's great achievements."
Performer: Wilhelm Kempff
- Beethoven - Violin Sonatas ("Spring" and "Kreutzer")
- Listener comment: "When I first heard the Frühlungs-sonata ["Spring" Sonata], I was amazed by its beauty. Especially the 4th movement (Rondo. Allegro ma non troppo) has won my heart. The Kreutzer is just as great, just listen to the variations... Ingrid Haebler and Henryk Szeyng sound wondeful together on this recording. Highly recommended!"
Performers: Ingrid Haebler, Henryk Szeryng
Beethoven Composing his Sixth Symphony
If you REALLY want to get serious...!
Beethoven: Complete Masterpieces (Germany) (60 CD Limited Edition Box Set)
Amazon Price: $172.99 (as of 12/15/2009)
"Mir ist so wunderbar" from opera Fidelio (by Ludwig van Beethoven)
Great Internet Resources on Ludwig Van Beethoven
- Beethoven: The Immortal
- Beethoven's story is one of personal triumph over tragedy and supreme musical achievement. A complex and brilliant man, no composer before or since has exerted greater influence.
- Ludwig Van Beethoven
- Life and works of Beethoven (article by Francis Hueffer, Ph.D., formerly musical critic of The Times; author of The Troubadours: a History of Provençal Life and Literature in the Middle Ages and Richard Wagner and the Music of the Future; editor of Great Musicians).
Violin Concerto, 3rd Movement (by Ludwig van Beethoven)
Violinist: David Oistrakh
Beethoven: Violin Concerto (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Beethoven: Violin Concerto (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Amazon Price: $30.26 (as of 12/16/2009)
Beethoven wrote only one violin concerto, but it is one of music's all-time indisputable masterpieces. As Robin Stowell notes in his preface to this scholarly, but quite readable, volume, it is "the only major violin concerto composed between Mozart's five concertos of 1775 and Mendelssohn's E minor Concerto Op. 64 (1844). As a model of melodic invention, spaciousness of design, sheer clarity, and logic of organization, the Concerto has no equals." It has earned a favored place in the repertoire of virtually every violinist of note, and in the hearts of discerning listeners. In this fine addition to the Cambridge Music Handbooks series, Stowell examines the origins of the concerto and influences on it, its structure and style, and its performance history. At its premiere in Vienna in 1806, the reception was mixed; the critic Johann Nepomuk Moser wrote that it was: "Burdened with a host of unconnected and piled-up ideas, and a continual tumult of different instruments... [the listener] could only leave the concert with an unpleasant sense of exhaustion." Fortunately, we hear things quite differently now. This is a useful volume for the specialist, or for anyone who wants to know as much as possible about this great work.
Ludwig van Beethoven (article)
Born in Bonn, then in the Electorate of Cologne (now in modern day Germany), he moved to Vienna, Austria, in his early twenties and settled there, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. Beethoven's hearing gradually deteriorated beginning in his twenties, yet he continued to compose masterpieces, and to conduct and perform, even after he was completely deaf.
Source: Wapedia
Beethoven - 3rd Symphony ("Eroica")
Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
Latest News on Beethoven
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byBeethoven - 6th Symphony ("Pastoral")
Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
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- bdkz bdkz Dec 21, 2008 @ 10:56 pm
- Very interesting lens!
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- flutestar123 flutestar123 Oct 6, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
- Super Lens! Check out my flute group @ http://www.squidoo.com/groups/Flutes
Would love to have this lens in the group!
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- dc64 dc64 Aug 22, 2008 @ 11:38 am
- Thanks for the visit to my Bach lens. I am awe-struck by your vast number of classical composers lenses. What a tribute! They are perfect for a lensroll to my Bach lens.
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- Adelaide Adelaide Apr 5, 2008 @ 7:39 am
- Hi, this is a great lens, i just LOVE Beethoven! I'm doing a music degree so it's a pretty big part of my life. Great to find someone else who loves it too!
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- ZoeSPEAK ZoeSPEAK Aug 25, 2007 @ 2:19 pm
- Hello, discovered you on the side of my lens. We love Beethoven (although Zoe prefers to "sing" to Wagner)! Excellent lens!
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