There are not many controversial figures in Beethoven’s life comparable to Anton Schindler. Probably Johanna van Beethoven, wife of his brother Karl, with whom Beethoven had legal and emotional battles over the custody of his nephew. Schindler forged history, destroyed evidence and based a career on the short relationship he had with Beethoven. Who was Anton Schindler? Anton Felix …
We continue our series on musical influencers in Beethoven’s life. Next in line is no less than Mozart himself! From his childhood everybody wanted him to be a Mozart! How did this expectation influence his life? There is a very popular anecdote about the young Beethoven visiting Vienna for the first time, and being introduced to the supreme Master, even …
From childhood Beethoven always had a sketchbook in his pocket. He used them to pen down musical ideas right as they came to him. Even though the handwriting is messy and sometimes indecipherable these books became the holy grail to his admirers. Especially the famous Landsberg 6! In 1803 Beethoven realized his old sketchbook is getting full and went …
Beethoven was seventeen when he met Count Waldstein in Bonn and already had admirers in the city, but no one came close to the influential, generous and musically sophisticated Waldstein. This article reveals how the Count influenced the fate of Beethoven. A short biography of Count Waldstein Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein was born in Vienna in 1762 …
The Flow is a psychological term we use often. Although, it became popular in the past decades this state of mind is not new to humans. Buddhism and Daoism, under different name have this concept for thousands of years. What is it exactly and what evidence we have that Beethoven was familiar with the flow? What is the Flow? In …
Apart from Neefe probably it was Georg Albrechtsberger, who was the most influential music teacher in Beethoven’s life. In this article we discover who Albrechtsberger was and his influence on Beethoven. Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736-1809) was an Austrian musician, a composer and organist. As a young man he had learned music and philosophy what he later combined in music theory. …