Today, timekeeping is an integral part of our daily lives. The devices we use are very accurate and present everywhere. This was not the case for a very long time. Also in music, up till the invention of the metronome, timekeeping and tempo was rather based on individual feeling than science. Time to organize society Small tribes, later larger societies, …
Both Haydn and Beethoven were considered to have Moor ancestry. Who are the Moors and what is their story? I always liked Morgan Freeman, especially in Robin Hood playing Azeem the Moor. From centuries later they seem mysterious people, advanced in knowledge and technologies, but conservative and pious at the same time. I decided to go deeper and find …
Beethoven was an emotional man. What else should the father of romantic musical era be? Stopping a piano concert, calling a disrespectful audience pigs and leaving was as common as throwing chairs or books at fellow human beings. He knew he had problems and was working on it… as today we call the process. Who was Plutarch? Plutarch was a …
For thousands of years human beings tried to define and explain the origins and the concept of evil and suffering. Through religions and philosophy many answers are available, now we look at some of them. Despite having a strong build Beethoven was troubled with his health from his early twenties until the end. Fate could have struck him with …
A Beethoven biography book recommendation Jan Swafford’s biography of Beethoven is not ‘just another book’ on the great master. He manages to be as complete as possible without being too academic or ruining the intimate tone of the book. The author covers a historical period of a lifetime including the Enlightenment, the Napoleonic wars, the peace treaty followed by, and …
Ludwig van Beethoven composed his piano sonatas between 1795 and 1822. During this period he wrote 32 piano works. (As a young boy, he had composed 3 piano sonatas that were published when he was 13. After his death one more, but incomplete piano sonata was found among his notes, also from his childhood. These 3+1 juvenile works are not …