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… …
At the time of Beethoven Vienna was full of talented musicians. Some of them extraordinary, but very few were favorably compared to him – especially with the piano. There was one exception… Who was Joseph Woelfl? Joseph Johann Baptist Woelfl (surname sometimes written as Wölfl or Wölffl) was a pianist and composer from Austria (24 December 1773 – 21 …
Like a certain form of civilized cage fights piano duels were common entertainment in contemporary Vienna. Beethoven himself participated in many proving himself a true heavy weight champion. In this article we look at the curious case of the Beethoven vs. Steibelt fight. In the Wild Wild West people used to make duels usually with one participant ending quite dead. …