Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany, on December 16, 1770. He received his earliest musical training in his native city where he early gave strong evidence of genius. He published his first works when he was eleven, and soon thereafter was performing publicly on the organ, cembalo, and the viola. He also disclosed a phenomenal gift at improvisation. He established permanent residence in Vienna in 1792. Three years later he made there his first public appearance, and from then on began to occupy a high position in Viennese musical life as a piano virtuoso. His fame as a composer soon superseded that of virtuoso as he won the support of Vienna’s aristocracy. He entered upon a new creative phase, as well as full maturity, beginning with 1800, when his first symphony was introduced in Vienna. His creative powers continually deepened and became enriched from that time on. As he restlessly sought to give poetic and dramatic expression to his writing he broke down the classical barriers so long confining music and opened up new horizons for style and structure. Meanwhile, in or about 1801 or 1802, he realized he was growing deaf, a discovery that swept him into despondency and despair, both of which find expression in a unique and remarkable document known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. Deafness led to personal idiosyncrasies and volatile moods which often tried the patience of even his closest friends, but it did not decrease the quantity of his musical production nor prevent him from achieving heights of creative expression achieved by few, if any. He died in Vienna on March 26, 1827 after having ushered in a new age for music with his symphonies, concertos, sonatas, string quartets, and masterworks in other categories including opera and choral music.
The grandeur of expression, the profundity of thought, and the independence of idiom we associate with Beethoven is not to be found in his lighter music which, generally speaking, is in a traditional mold, pleasing style, and in an inviting lyric vein. This is not the Beethoven who was the proud democrat, whose life was a struggle with destiny, and who sought to make music the expression of his profoundest concepts. This is rather, another Beethoven: the one who liked to dance, though he did it badly; who flirted with the girls; and who indulged in what he himself described as “unbuttoned humor.”
Beethoven wrote twelve Contredanses (Contretaenze) in 1801-1802. These are not “country dances” as the term “contretaenze” is sometimes erroneously translated. The Contredanse is the predecessor of the waltz. Like the waltz it is in three-part form, the third part repeating the first, while the middle section is usually a trio in contrasting mood. In 1801-1802, when Beethoven wrote his Contredanses, he was already beginning to probe deeply into poetic thought and emotion in his symphonies, sonatas, and concertos. But in the Contredanses the poet becomes peasant. This is earthy music, overflowing with melodies of folksong vigor, and vitalized by infectious peasant rhythms. The Contredanse No. 7 in E-flat major is particularly famous; this same melody was used by the composer for his music to the ballet Prometheus, for the finale of his Eroica Symphony, and for his Piano Variations, op. 35. The key signatures of the twelve Contredanses are: C major, A major, D major, B-flat major, E-flat major, C major, E-flat major, C major, A major, C major, G major and E-flat major.
A half dozen years before he wrote his Contredanses Beethoven had completed a set of twelve German Dances (Deutsche Taenze). The form, style, and spirit of the German Dance is so similar to the Contredanse that many Austrian composers used the terms interchangeably. Beethoven’s early German Dances, like the later Contredanses, are a reservoir of lively and tuneful semi-classical music with an engaging earthy quality to the melodies and a lusty vitality to the rhythms.
Few Beethoven compositions have enjoyed such universal approval with budding pianists, salon orchestras, and various popular ensembles as the Minuet in G. It is not too far afield to maintain that this is one of the most famous minuets in all musical literature. Beethoven wrote it originally for the piano; it is the second of a set of six minuets, written in 1795, but published as op. 167. It is even more celebrated in its many different transcriptions than it is in the original. The composition is in three-part form. The first and third parts consist of a stately classical melody; midway comes a fast-moving trio of contrasting spirit.
The first movement of the Moonlight Sonata is also often heard in varied transcriptions for salon or “pop” orchestras. The Moonlight Sonata is the popular name of the piano sonata in C-sharp minor, op. 27, no. 2 which Beethoven wrote in 1801 and which he designated as Sonata quasi una fantasia mainly because of the fantasia character of this first movement. The poetic and sensitive mood maintained throughout the first movement—with a romantic melody of ineffable sadness accompanied by slow triplets—is the reason why the critic Rellstab (and not the composer) provided the entire sonata with the name of “Moonlight.” To Rellstab this first movement evoked for him a picture of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland at night time, gently touched by the moonlight. The fact that Beethoven dedicated the sonata to Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, with whom he was then in love, leads to a legend that he wrote this music to express frustrated love, but this was not the case. Another myth about this first movement is that Beethoven improvised this music while playing for a blind boy, as moonlight streamed into the window of his room; after he had finished playing he identified himself to the awe-stricken youngster. It was the opinion of the eminent critic, Henry E. Krehbiel, that the sonata was inspired by a poem, Die Beterin by Seume, describing a young girl kneeling at an altar begging for her father’s recovery from a serious illness; angels descend to comfort her and she becomes transfigured by a divine light.
Beethoven wrote two Romances for violin and orchestra: in F major, op. 50 (1802) and G major, op. 40 (1803). Rarely do we encounter in Beethoven’s works such a fresh, spontaneous and entirely unsophisticated outpouring of song—a song that wears its beauty on the surface—as in these two compositions. The two Romances are companion pieces and pursue a similar pattern. Each opens with the solo violin presenting the main melody (in the F major accompanied by the orchestra, in the G major, solo). Each then progresses to a pure outpouring of lyricism followed by virtuoso passages for the solo instrument. In each, violin and orchestra appear to be engaging in a gentle dialogue.
The Turkish March (Marcia alla turca) is one of several numbers (the fourth) comprising the incidental music to a play by Kotzebue, The Ruins of Athens (Die Ruinen von Athen), op. 113 (1811). The production of this play with Beethoven’s music was intended for the opening of a theater in Pesth on February 9, 1812. The Turkish March is in the pseudo-Turkish melodic style popular in Vienna in the early 19th century, and it employs percussion instruments such as the triangle which the Viennese then associated with Turkish music. The march, with its quixotic little melody, begins softly, almost like march music heard from a distance. It grows in sonority until a stirring climax is achieved. Then it dies out gradually and ebbs away in the distance. Leopold Auer made a famous transcription for violin and piano, while Beethoven himself transcribed it for piano, with six variations, op. 76 (1809).