Five Things You Didn't Know About Beethoven | Famous Composers

hi everyone I'm Rick Beato and today's everything music we're going to talk about five things that you didn't know about Ludwig van Beethoven number one Beethoven was born into a family of musicians that was at least two generations in the making his father johann was a court composer and tenor and was also a violent alcoholic he even went so far as to lie about Beethoven's age saying it was born in 1772 instead of 1770 so that he would appear younger in his performances despite having a very abusive parent Beethoven grew to love music and became one of the greatest composers in history number two did Beethoven and Mozart ever meet well Beethoven traveled from Bonn to Vienna where Mozart lived in 1787 now Bonn and Vienna are about 450 miles apart he was there for a short period of time maybe about six weeks there have been many accounts related to this that say that they did meet the Beethoven had some lessons from Mozart but it's never really been established whether they met one thing is for sure Mozart's influence on Beethoven lasted throughout his life in fact there was a passage from Mozart's fortieth symphony that was written into a Beethoven sketchbook while it was working on his own fifth symphony number three Beethoven began going deaf around 1796 when he was just 25 years old what began as buzzing and ringing the ears eventually increased to total deafness around 1816 in 1802 Beethoven was at a breaking point his life went on a retreat to Heiligenstadt just outside Vienna he wrote the famous Halligan's Testament which was a letter written to his two brothers Carl and Johann on October 6th 1802 Beethoven writes but think that for six years now I've been hopelessly afflicted made worse by senseless physicians from year-to-year deceived with hopes of improvement finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady whose cure will take years were perhaps be impossible though born with a fiery active temperament even susceptible to the diversions of society I was soon compelled to withdraw myself to live a life alone if at times I tried to forget all this oh how harsh I was flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing yet it was impossible for me to say to people speak louder shout for I am deaf oh how can I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than others a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection of perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or have ever enjoyed oh I cannot do it therefore forgive me when you see me draw back when I wouldn't have gladly mingled with you he went on to say but what a humiliation for me when someone's standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing or someone heard a Shepherd singing and again I heard nothing such incidents drove me almost to despair a little more of that and I would have ended my life it was only my art that held me back ah it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me so I endure this wretched existence number four which is possibly the greatest concert of all time this is actually a real thing that happened on December 22nd 1808 Beethoven acting as promoter conductor and concert pianist staged a remarkable concert in Vienna's theater an der Veen which premiered several of the most influential works in music history the concert was held in a very cold concert hall which was approximately four hours in length and featured the public premieres of Beethoven's fifth and sixth symphonies the fourth piano concerto and the choral fantasy which featured Orchestra chorus vocalist of Lewis and Beethoven as piano soloist so part one of the concert began with the premiere of his sixth symphony the pastoral in F major beautiful beautiful piece this was followed by upper feet Oh a concert area for soprano and orchestra next was the Gloria from the mass in C major for vocal soloists chorus and orchestra and part one concluded with the premiere of Beethoven's 4th piano concerto which is possibly one of the greatest concertos all time certainly my favorite piano concerto vault this was just part one so after the intermission was the premiere of Beethoven's fifth symphony then this was followed by the Sanctus from the Masen C major next was a Fantasia and improvised Fantasia by Beethoven this is after you'd already played the entire fourth piano concerto in the first half of the concert we're talking you know three hours into this then the concert concluded with the premiere of the choral fantasy for piano soloist vocal soloists chorus and orchestra this was the greatest concert of all time and number five as his deafness progressed Beethoven tended to use the middle and low frequency notes in his compositions because he could hear them better when writing and performing his music when he became deaf and completely reliant on his inner ear for composing he was no longer compelled to create music that he could actually hear when performed you can see a change in his compositional style as well as his orchestrations some of his greatest works from the third or late period of compositions these included works such as the last five piano sonatas including the famous hammer clavier or the last five string quartets or the ruins of Athens overture an incidental music the diya belly variations for piano the great mass missus alumnus which is generally considered to being one of Beethoven's supreme achievements and like Bach's mass and B minor one of the most significant mass settings of all times and lastly the ninth symphony which features the ode to joy' it was completed in 1824 three years before Beethoven's death and is one of the best-known works in classical music and almost universally considered to be one of the greatest compositions in Western music just imagine the kind of mind it took to create a piece of this scope with nothing more than his inner ear to perform it Beethoven was not only one of the greatest composers of all time he was also one of the greatest minds

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 182,887

Keywords: Beethoven, five things you didn't know, rick beato, everything music, music theory, music history, perfect pitch, romantic era composers, mozart and beethoven, heiligenstadt testament

Id: 121LT-2vFWY

Length: 6min 51sec (411 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 14 2016