BEETHOVEN :: essays research papers

Ludwig Van BeethovenBorn to a drunkard grow and an unhappy mother, the young Beethoven was subjected to a brutal training in harmony at the hands of his father, who hoped that the boy would prove to be other prodigy like Mozart. Failing in this, the young Beethoven to a greater extentover embraced music and studied for a short time in 1792 with Franz Joseph Haydn in Vienna. Hailed as a genius and a master of improvisation at the piano, Beethoven soon made a name for himself, and by 1794 was cognise throughout Europe. He faithfully learned the Classical Viennese styles and traditions in music, and then proceeded throughout his career to completely revolutionize them. His earliest compositions think over the innocent restraint of Haydn and Mozart, yet there were always flashes of what was to come. The emotion he displayed while playing his give birth music was un come upond of in his day, and the warm intensity of his early Piano Sonata in C minor, known as the "Pathetiqu e" is one of the first works in which Beethoven gives vent to his own dramatic melodious voice.By 1800, Beethoven had become aware of his go deafness -- surely a most horrible fate for a musician and unendurable to a composer. Agonizing over his fate, Beethoven contemplated suicide, precisely in the end embraced life, determined to go on composing, if no yearlong performing. Unhappy with his compositions up to that time and stating that he would now be " devising a fresh start," Beethoven began composing music such as had never before been heard. His Symphony no. 3 in E-flat major, legend the "Eroica", was completed in 1804, and was almost twice as long as any philharmonic written up to that time. Taking the classical symphony as a starting point, it introduces more themes, more contrasts, more instruments, more weight and more drama than previously heard in the symphonious form. His sixteen string quartets span his creative life and developed from the clas sical restraint of the six "Early" quartets to the sublime late quartets which contain music of such personal pain and suffering, that one wonders if an audience was intended to hear them at all. The power of Beethovens voice can be heard in the String Quartet no. 11 in F minor. Beethovens musical ideas, the "themes" he used and from which he painstakingly constructed his works, were revolutionary for his day. The well-known open motto theme of the famous Symphony no.