The Evolution of Music and Musical Instruments from the Baroque Era to the Romantic Era

Beethoven is perhaps the most famous musician of all time. His influence on later composers was extremely huge, to the extent where many composers were intimidated by his music. Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770 into a family of musicians. His father and grandfather were both musicians at the court of Elector in the German town of Bonn. His grandfather was very respected, but his dad not so much given that he was an alcoholic. At a young age, Beethoven was put in charge of his family’s finances and started a job at the court. He composed music and helped look after the instrumentation. Around the same time, he began to write music. In 1790, an important visitor passed through Bonn: this was Franz Joseph Haydn. He was on his way to London for a visit when he stopped to meet Beethoven and agreed to take him on as a student when he came back from London to Vienna. In 1792, Beethoven moved to Vienna to study with Hayden. Apparently, it did not go as planned. Hayden was old fashion and a little overbearing, while Beethoven was rebellious and headstrong. Beethoven found support among the rich arts who lived in Vienna. Prince Lichnowsky gave him board and lodging at his place for in return, Beethoven would compose music and preform at evening parties.

The term Baroque has been widely acknowledged as a period in Western European Art Music lasting for 150 years from early 17th to mid-18th century. The word itself is originated from barroco in Portuguese meaning “oddly shaped pearl”, which best describes the visual and details of the buildings existed during that period. Its flamboyant and ornate details of the building is what causes ornamentations and harpsichords to become an essential element of Baroque music. Bach, ornamentation, and harpsichord are few of the most recognisable elements of Western Art music during the Baroque period. Nonetheless, we all came to a second realisation that the Baroque era lasted for more than 150 years, meaning that it has its own remarkable history and

Ludwig van Beethoven is a name that is common to most people and is synonymies with great classical music. He is known, quite loosely, as the German composer who created beautiful pieces with an incredible disability. Despite an unhappy family setting and the deafness that struck soon after, the man appeared to rise from his misfortunes and follow his passion. Mr. Beethoven created some of the most wonderful music and is considered one of the greatest musicians of all time. Ludwig, at a very young age, began his career as a marvelous piano player and composer of piano music. Beethoven continued his work expanding to string quartets and other kinds of chamber music, songs, two masses, an opera, and nine symphonies. The

Ludwig Van Beethoven, as he was named, is one of the most famous composers to the genre of classical music. Beethoven was one of 7 children although some of his siblings did not survive childhood. Beethoven was a man who seemed to have issue with alcohol and yet his father was instrumental in helping Beethoven fine tune his musical abilities. It is said that his father was abusive in his teaching methods by thrashing Beethoven at any mistake he would make, but Beethoven was always interested in music and the very young age of 7 provided one of his first performances. By the time that Beethoven was 12, he had published one of his first musical pieces called Variations for C minor for piano. What perhaps makes this even more remarkable is that

Abstract This research looks at the work of Ludwig van Beethoven, who was thought to be one of the most influential musicians of all time. This research outlines primary sources including the composers background, his upbringing, music background, a complete list of his compositions, background on the historic time periods of the composer’s life, and circumstances for which he lived. This focus undermines his role as a dominant force as one of the most influential composers of the nineteenth Century. The development of Beethoven is organized into two periods in history: The Classical and Romantic periods.

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist, and the predominant musical figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras. He was born to musician Johann van Beethoven and Maria Magdalena van Beethoven, and though his exact birthdate is unknown his family celebrated it on December 16, 1770. Having been practically born into his profession, Beethoven exhibited strong musical development underneath the harsh instruction of his father. He learned to play the violin and piano, and was often ordered to perform for his father’s drinking companions with the threat of a beating if he refused. Practice would sometimes even last until morning. It is known that he began to attract attention as early as his adolescence due to his superior musical skill.

Ludwig Beethoven grew up in an unhappy home during the late 1800s in Bonn, Germany. His alcoholic father was an angry man and Ludwig escaped his dreadful childhood in his music. At the age of twelve, Ludwig had symphonies imbedded in his mind and soul. He was a gifted composer who supported his family with his talent, he taught music and performed. Music was not enough to protect Ludwig from his abusive home life, his mother died and his father’s drinking grew worse. At nineteen years old Ludwig took over the family household. Ludwig van Beethoven was the most profound, incredible composer who lived in his music, endured endless suffering, and transitioned music from classical to the romantic era.

Ludwig van Beethoven is known for much of his musical accomplishments. One of his most famous is that he is deaf and yet one of the best musical composers of the classical and romanic area. Beethoven has always been one of my personal favorite composers. When I grew up and started taking piano, Beethoven 's Fur Elise was my first large classical piece. Ever since that point on I insisted that when we were in Germany we see his home, and that we did. In this essay I will be explaining Ludwigs Youth, Growing Reputation, and master Composer Times.

In 1801, one of the most devastating incidents hindered Beethoven's life. He suffered from a musician's worst nightmare, deafness. He realized that this would cause trouble for not only hi professional life but his social life as well (Kerman 360). Although Beethoven supposedly fell in love many times, he never was married (Marek 223). As a result of his deafness and inability to have long lasting intimate relationships, he focused all of his melancholy attention to his music. Therefore, that is why his most profounded works were written towards the end of his life. The greatest work he composed was probably the Fifth Symphony, which he wrote with great passion due to these losses (Kerman 354). It is in succession of C minor to C major causing difficulty in copying the imagination. Even today the Fifth Symphony is interpreted as the musical project of

Beethoven writes on in this letter his thoughts of suicide, but that he refrained from doing so because he felt called to compose more than his current repertoire at the time had. Even while going deaf, Beethoven continued to create magnificent pieces of music that forcefully carried emotion into its listener’s ears with pieces like the famous Moonlight Sonata and Piano Sonata in E Minor. This music that Beethoven was composing had true passion behind it, which is something that contributed in the shift from the Classical Era to the Romantic Period in music. The word “simplicity” can be used to describe Beethoven’s numerous compositions because they were not the intricate fast-moving pieces that Mozart was known for, but rather simple and elegant musical pieces.

Ludwig von Beethoven, considered messy, unconventional, and ugly by his society, is widely respected today by both musicians and nonmusicians. He was a man of magnitude, someone who is, “a definition of greatness,” (Fugard 19). Despite his obstacles, he produced beautiful music and gain a great deal of fame. Beethoven was able to create nine symphonies, five concertos for piano, thirty-two piano sonatas, and sixteen string quartets even though he dealt with his mother’s death and an alcoholic father, was faced with negative remarks from society, and lost his hearing. Beethoven, born in Bonn, Germany, was talented in composition and the keyboard.

Beethoven had an incredible career. At the age of seven, Ludwig Van Beethoven gave his first public performance at Cologne on March 26th, 1778. At the age of twelve, Beethoven published his first work Nine variations in C Minor in 1782. The following year, Neefe wrote about his student Beethoven, “If he continues like this, he will be, without a doubt, the new Mozart” in the Magazine of Music. Ludwig Van Beethoven was appointed organist of the court of Maximillian Franz, the Elector of Cologne at 14 years old in June 1784. Being an organist introduced him new social circles. He met new people who became his lifetime friends: The Ries family, the Von Breuning family, and the charming Elenore, Karl Amenda, Franz Gerhard Wegeler. Beethoven’s musical talent caught Prince Maximillian Franz’ attention, and he sent Beethoven to Vienna to further his musical education with Mozart in 1787. Vienna was the capital city of culture and music at that time. Allegedly, Mozart said “Don’t forget his name (Beethoven) – you will hear it spoken often!” After being in Vienna for a while, Beethoven received a letter stating that his mother was dying. One scholar wrote, “The only person in his family with whom he had developed a strong and loving relationship with, passed away on July 17th 1787”. In 1792, Beethoven returned to Vienna to pursue his musical education again after receiving another grant by the Prince Elector. Beethoven composed Opus 1, the Trios for Piano in 1794. In 1795,

Life as it was for Beethoven had many varying elements, and this research paper will be revealing a lot of what he went through as a young boy all the way to the end of his life and career as the world renowned Ludwig van Beethoven. The basis for this paper is to express and expound on the life and career of Beethoven, and why he was seen as part of the pivotal transition between the Classical and Romantic eras. The topics that will be discussed will be the revelation of Beethoven’s childhood and how he was raised, an expository of his early schooling and composer days, the account of his many composed symphonies, the occurrences during his composition years, and the final tale of his death.

Composer and Pianist, Ludwig Van Beethoven, who is universally considered the greatest composer of all time was born in December of 1770 into a modest family in a small German town called Bonn. Beethoven got his name from his late Flemish grandfather who was a bass player at court and then in 1761 he became maestro of the chapel (Iulian Munteanu, Onesti, Romania). During his short years of living in his hometown Bonn, he studied a wide variety of compositions and played the piano and viola. Beethoven withdrew from school at the young age of ten to study music full time with Christian Gottlob Neefe who was the musical director of the national theatre in Bonn. Neefe was not only Beethoven’s first real teacher but he also became Beethoven’s mentor by showing him new advances of his century (Iulian Munteanu, Onesti, Romania). In his twenties, he moved to Vienna where he would live until his death in 1827. There, he studied Mozart and Haydn and quickly became famous by making a reputation by not only being a pianist but also a teacher. Beethoven was a crucial figure throughout the transitioning of the Classical and Romanic era in western art music. Beethoven is known to be one of the greatest composers of all time because he had ferocious individualism and determination during an age where it was not considered the norm, he continued to compose while gradually becoming fully deaf, and he embraced the expansion of his symphonies such as one of his most famous compositions,

Most of Beethoven 's contemporaries were amazed into silence — or have been silenced by the judgement of history: the outstanding exception is Schubert, who discovered a symphonic mastery all his own in his ‘Unfinished’ (1822) and ‘Great C major '(1825). For those who came after, Beethoven was the single, unavoidable and awesome model, to which they could respond with either a new classicism or a wild Romantic leap: on the one hand