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On Sunday, April 11 at 7 p.m. virtuoso pianist Jeffrey Siegel returns for a digital, livestreamed Keyboard Conversations® concert with commentary, recorded live from Merchant Hall at the Hylton Center. Siegel celebrates the 250th anniversary of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s birth with some of the composer’s best-loved works. As a German composer and pianist, Beethoven was a crucial figure in the transition between the classical and romantic eras and is considered to be one of the greatest composers of all time.
Beethoven’s music is ubiquitous. Longtime Friend of the Center for the Arts Alan Driscoll has helped us uncover some insightful Beethoven facts you may or may not know to get us ready for Siegel’s performance.
DID YOU KNOW . . . .
Beethoven was born in Bonn, the capital of the Electorate of Cologne, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire? His actual date of birth is not documented but December 16, 1770, is generally accepted as the date because he was baptized on December 17, 1770, and the custom at the time was to baptize on the day after birth. Young Ludwig had to leave school at age 11 to help with family duties. As a result, he never learned to do multiplication or division.
DID YOU KNOW . . . .
His musical talent was obvious at an early age, but he was harshly and intensively taught by his father Johann van Beethoven? His father thought this would enable him to become a child prodigy like Mozart. His first composition was written when he was only 12. It was a set of 9 variations for piano on a march by Ernst Christoph Dressler, in C minor. As a portent for what was to come, it was extremely difficult to play. In Bonn, Beethoven was later taught by the composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe, who used the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach as a cornerstone of instruction. He also studied briefly with Mozart while on a trip to Vienna.
DID YOU KNOW . . . .
At age 21, he moved to Vienna and studied composition with Joseph Haydn? Beethoven then gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist, and he was soon courted by Karl Alois, Prince Lichnowsky for compositions that resulted in Opus 1 in 1795. Opus 1 is a set of three piano trios (written for piano, violin, and cello), first performed in 1795 in the house of Prince Lichnowsky, to whom they are dedicated.
DID YOU KNOW . . . .
Beethoven did not call his Sonata, Opus 27, the ‘Moonlight,’ but rather simply called it No. 14? The name was penned by the German poet Ludwig Rellstab some years after Beethoven had died. Apparently, the music reminded the poet of moonlight reflecting on Lake Lucerne. The name stuck. Beethoven’s Third Symphony, known as the Eroica, was initially dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, whose ideas were respected by Beethoven. However, when Napoleon declared himself Emperor, Beethoven went into one of his rages, ripped off the front page of the score and scribbled out Napoleon’s name from the work.
DID YOU KNOW. . . .
Beethoven wrote only one opera, Fidelio? On the basis that it took him over 10 years of revisions, it is not surprising that he did not write another. The original version is still occasionally performed and is known as Leonora.
DID YOU KNOW . . . .
Beethoven’s deafness began when he was in his twenties? He suffered from tinnitus (ringing in his ears) for some years before his hearing deteriorated completely. After realizing that his deafness was permanent and irreversible, Beethoven wrote a letter in 1802 to his two younger brothers – it is now known as the Heiligenstadt Testament – in which he faced up to his disability and announced his determination to overcome it. The letter was never sent and was found in his papers after his death in 1827.
DID YOU KNOW . . . .
Beethoven always fell in love with unobtainable women, but never married? One of his pupils, Josephine Brunswick (in 1799) was believed to be the intended recipient of his famous ‘immortal beloved’ love letter. She married a Count instead. Beethoven also fell in love with a Countess named Julie, and wrote 15 passionate and unrequited love letters to her; however, she couldn’t marry him because he was deemed a commoner. Beethoven died a bachelor in 1827. His funeral procession on 29 March 1827 was attended by an estimated 20,000 Viennese citizens.
DID YOU KNOW . . . .
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (Choral, completed in 1824) is perhaps the most famous work of classical music in existence? The words in the final movement, known as the ‘Ode to Joy,’ are sung to the poem of the same name written by Freidrich Schiller in 1785. The Ninth Symphony was adopted as the “National Anthem of Europe” by the European Union.
DID YOU KNOW . . . .
Beethoven’s music is ubiquitous and often appears in unusual places? Parts of the Ninth Symphony were used in a Bruce Willis film (Die Hard) to accompany crooks cracking a safe, and in Michael Jackson’s 1993 single (Will You Be There). A disco version of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony arranged by Walter Murphy and called ‘A Fifth of Beethoven,’ was used in the film Saturday Night Fever. The use of the word ‘Fifth’ in this context was referring to liquor, which was usually sold in bottles that contained a fifth of a gallon. The Seventh Symphony by Beethoven was used in the 2010 award-winning film, The Kings Speech. A movie titled Copying Beethoven was released in 2006, starring Ed Harris as Beethoven. This film was a fictionalized account of Beethoven's last days and his struggle to produce his Ninth Symphony before he died.
Don’t miss a chance to learn more about Beethoven during the upcoming Keyboard Conversations® with Jeffrey Siegel April 11 at 7 p.m.