Snowden Summer Learning 2022 Instructor Corcoran

Ludwig van Beethoven Reading & Quiz

Required: Click here to listen to "Symphony #5 / 1st Movement"

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer whose Symphony 5 is a

beloved classic. Some of his greatest works were composed while Beethoven
was going deaf.

Who Was Ludwig van Beethoven?

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German pianist and composer widely considered
to be one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time. His innovative
compositions combined vocals and instruments, widening the scope of sonata,
symphony, concerto and quartet. He is the crucial transitional figure connecting
the Classical and Romantic ages of Western music. Beethoven’s personal life
was marked by a struggle against deafness, and some of his most important
works were composed during the last 10 years of his life, when he was quite
unable to hear. He died at the age of 56.

Controversial Birthday
Beethoven was born on or about December 16, 1770, in the city of Bonn in the
Electorate of Cologne, a principality of the Holy Roman Empire. Although his
exact date of birth is uncertain, Beethoven was baptized on December 17, 1770.
As a matter of law and custom, babies at the time were baptized within 24 hours
of birth, so December 16 is his most likely birthdate. however, Beethoven himself
mistakenly believed that he was born two years later, in 1772, and he stubbornly
insisted on the incorrect date even when presented with official papers that
proved beyond any reasonable doubt that 1770 was his true birth year.

Family
Beethoven had two younger brothers who survived into adulthood: Caspar, born
in 1774, and Johann, born in 1776. Beethoven's mother, Maria Magdalena van
Beethoven, was a slender, genteel, and deeply moralistic woman. His father,
Johann van Beethoven, was a mediocre court singer better known for his
alcoholism than any musical ability. However, Beethoven's grandfather,
godfather and namesake, Kapellmeister Ludwig van Beethoven, was Bonn's
most prosperous and eminent musician, a source of endless pride for
young Beethoven.

Childhood Abuse
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Sometime between the births of his two younger brothers, Beethoven's father
began teaching him music with an extraordinary rigor and brutality that affected
him for the rest of his life. Neighbors provided accounts of the small boy weeping
while he played the clavier, standing atop a footstool to reach the keys, his father
beating him for each hesitation or mistake. On a near daily basis, Beethoven was
flogged, locked in the cellar and deprived of sleep for extra hours of practice. He
studied the violin and clavier with his father as well as taking additional lessons
from organists around town. Whether in spite of or because of his father's
draconian methods, Beethoven was a prodigiously talented musician from his
earliest days.

Education
Hoping that his young son would be recognized as a musical prodigy à
la Wolfgang Mozart, Beethoven's father arranged his first public recital for March
26, 1778. Billed as a "little son of 6 years," (Mozart's age when he debuted
for Empress Maria Theresia) although he was in fact 7, Beethoven played
impressively, but his recital received no press whatsoever Meanwhile, the
musical prodigy attended a Latin grade school named Tirocinium, where a
classmate said, "Not a sign was to be discovered of that spark of genius which
glowed so brilliantly in him afterwards."

Beethoven, who struggled with sums and spelling his entire life, was at best an
average student, and some biographers have hypothesized that he may have
had mild dyslexia. As he put it himself, "Music comes to me more readily than
words." In 1781, at the age of 10, Beethoven withdrew from school to study
music full time with Christian Gottlob Neefe, the newly appointed Court Organist,
and at the age of 12, Beethoven published his first composition, a set of piano
variations on a theme by an obscure classical composer named Dressler. By
1784, his alcoholism worsening and his voice decaying, Beethoven's father was
no longer able to support his family, and Beethoven formally requested an official
appointment as Assistant Court Organist. Despite his youth, his request was
accepted, and Beethoven was put on the court payroll with a modest annual
salary of 150 florins.

Beethoven and Mozart

There is only speculation and inconclusive evidence that Beethoven ever met
with Mozart, let alone studied with him. In an effort to facilitate his musical
development, in 1787 the court sent Beethoven to Vienna, Europe’s capital of
culture and music, where he hoped to study with Mozart. Tradition has it that,
upon hearing Beethoven, Mozart said, "Keep your eyes on him; someday he will
give the world something to talk about.” After only a few weeks in Vienna,
Beethoven learned that his mother had fallen ill and he returned home to Bonn.
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Remaining there, Beethoven continued to carve out his reputation as the city's
most promising young court musician.

Beethoven and Haydn

In 1792, with French revolutionary forces sweeping across the Rhineland into the
Electorate of Cologne, Beethoven decided to leave his hometown for Vienna
once again. Mozart had passed away a year earlier, leaving Joseph Haydn as
the unquestioned greatest composer alive. Haydn was living in Vienna at the
time, and it was with Haydn that the young Beethoven now intended to study. As
his friend and patron Count Waldstein wrote in a farewell letter, "Mozart's genius
mourns and weeps over the death of his disciple. It found refuge, but no release
with the inexhaustible Haydn; through him, now, it seeks to unite with another. By
means of assiduous labor you will receive the spirit of Mozart from the hands of
Haydn." In Vienna, Beethoven dedicated himself wholeheartedly to musical study
with the most eminent musicians of the age. He studied piano with Haydn, vocal
composition with Antonio Salieri and counterpoint with Johann Albrechtsberger.
Not yet known as a composer, Beethoven quickly established a reputation as a
virtuoso pianist who was especially adept at improvisation.

Debut Performance
Beethoven won many patrons among the leading citizens of the Viennese
aristocracy, who provided him with lodging and funds, allowing Beethoven, in
1794, to sever ties with the Electorate of Cologne. Beethoven made his long-
awaited public debut in Vienna on March 29, 1795.

Although there is considerable debate over which of his early piano concerti he
performed that night, most scholars believe he played what is known as his "first"
piano concerto in C Major. Shortly thereafter, Beethoven decided to publish a
series of three piano trios as his Opus 1, which were an enormous critical and
financial success.

In the first spring of the new century, on April 2, 1800, Beethoven debuted his
Symphony No. 1 in C major at the Royal Imperial Theater in Vienna. Although
Beethoven would grow to detest the piece — "In those days I did not know how
to compose," he later remarked — the graceful and melodious symphony
nevertheless established him as one of Europe's most celebrated composers.

As the new century progressed, Beethoven composed piece after piece that
marked him as a masterful composer reaching his musical maturity. His Six
String Quartets, published in 1801, demonstrate complete mastery of that most
difficult and cherished of Viennese forms developed by Mozart and Haydn.
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Personal Life
For a variety of reasons that included his crippling shyness and unfortunate
physical appearance, Beethoven never married or had children. He was,
however, desperately in love with a married woman named Antonie Brentano.
Over the course of two days in July of 1812, Beethoven wrote her a long and
beautiful love letter that he never sent. Addressed "to you, my Immortal Beloved,"
the letter said in part, "My heart is full of so many things to say to you — ah —
there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all — Cheer up
— remain my true, my only love, my all as I am yours."

The death of Beethoven's brother Caspar in 1815 sparked one of the great trials
of his life, a painful legal battle with his sister-in-law, Johanna, over the custody
of Karl van Beethoven, his nephew and her son. The struggle stretched on for
seven years, during which both sides spewed ugly defamations at the other. In
the end, Beethoven won the boy's custody, though hardly his affection.

Ludwig van Beethoven Quiz

Answer the following questions as true or false and write a short paragraph.

1. Ludwig van Beethoven was a German pianist and composer widely

considered to be one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time.

2. Beethoven was born on or about December 16, 1770

3. Beethoven’s personal life was marked by a struggle against deafness

4. Beethoven's father, and namesake, Kapellmeister Ludwig van Beethoven,

was Bonn's most prosperous and eminent musician.

5. On a near daily basis, Beethoven was flogged, locked in the cellar and
deprived of sleep for extra hours of practice.

6. Beethoven attended a Latin grade school named Langsammer.

7. Beethoven played the trumpet and the saxophone.

8. Beethoven, who never struggled with sums and spelling his entire life, was
an excellent student.

9. Mozart and Haydn were composers Beethoven studied with.

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10. Beethoven was married with 7 children.

We have listened to Beethoven's 5th Symphony. Please describe in a short

paragraph whether you liked it or not and why. Is it happy music or sad? Is it
frightening? How did it make you feel? Write your answer in the text box below.