There is a very popular anecdote about the meeting of Mozart and Beethoven. According to this, when Beethoven first visited Vienna in 1787 (at age 17), he was introduced to Mozart. The young talent played a piece and when he saw Mozart was not impressed, he begged for more time to improvise. This finally convinced Mozart, who said: “Mark that …
Pitch To make a sound, a vibration must be caused in the air. This can be done, for example, by a string or the skin of a drum. If this vibration is fast, we hear it as a high pitch. If it is slow, we hear it as low or deep pitch. The human ear can pick up a pitch …
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, today Germany. In his teenager years, local wealthy and influential patrons helped him to meet and follow Haydn (on his way back from London) to Vienna, in order to learn from the great Master. He first left Bonn for this reason in 1787 (at age 17), only to hasten back several weeks later, …
Like every contemporary boy, Beethoven went to start his primary school education around age of 5 or 6, (exact age is unknown). The school he attended was a secular state school in Bonn, called Tirocinium. Like often the case with geniuses, he did not make any lasting impression at school and by the age of ten his father withdrew him …
From childhood Beethoven was trained to become a great musician, and as such, from his early years he had learned to play on more instruments. He had fair command of the violin and viola, at age of 18 he got a viola player position at the Bonn-court orchestra. He himself was not impressed by his own skills with these strings… …
1. Rome was not built in a day, as we say, and neither was the Fifth Symphony! Beethoven made his first notes in his famous sketchbook around 1803-1804. The initial ideas about the opening, the primal four-note motif, were not very impressive. He had to develop it further. He had started to focus more on this composition from 1807 and …