Alexander Wheelock Thayer (1817-1897) was an American writer and journalist who travelled to Europe to conduct extensive research on Beethoven’s life, with the intension of writing the first scholarly biography of the great composer. His work became the basis for modern research on Beethoven. Thayer was born in South Natick, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard college, and it was whilst he …
What do the books on your shelf say about you? Thanks to the dedication and hard-work of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, we know a fair amount about Beethoven’s taste in literature. Amongst the list of fine literature, non-fiction, and reference books, we can find a hidden gem: a spiritual text, containing one essay for every day of the year. This book …
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 …
With enough certainty we know that on his deathbed Beethoven had with him some books from Plutarch, Homer, Ovid and Epictetus. In this article we will discover who was Epictetus and how he – and stoic philosophy in general – influenced his approach to emotions. Who was Epictetus? Epictetus was a Greek philosopher born around 50 AD in Phrygia (today …
Did Beethoven read Shakespeare? Did he like the writer, was he inspired by his plays? Read on to find out! Did Beethoven read and like Shakespeare? Beethoven’s first exposure to Shakespeare had to be in his childhood, still in Bonn, at the local court theater. It is well documented that more plays from Shakespeare were on the repertoire: Hamlet, King …