The Music of Beethoven Essay

Both Haydn's and Beethoven's first movements are composed in sonata form, with an exposition stated in the opening that is then developed and recapitulated. The size of Haydn's opening movement is somewhat smaller than Beethoven's, whose opening exposition itself seems larger than life. Haydn's first movement is roughly six minutes long, and the length of Beethoven's first movement only exceeds Haydn's by about a minute and a half to two minutes.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had endless ideas for writing piano sonatas and like his other works, his sonata style has evolved dramatically over the years. His early works have been constantly compared with other well-known composers at the time. For example, it has been suggested that Haydn’s F Major Sonata, Hob. XVI: 23 as a model for Mozart’s K. 280 in the same key.

Many consider Ludwig Von Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 as his first major musical accomplishment, more commonly known as Sonata Pathetique. Written at the age of 27 in 1798, the young composer had gained instant fame and his work was published only a year later. Beethoven, being one of the first significant musicians to work for them selves, is said to have given it the title.

8 in C minor, Op. 13 composed in 1798 focussing on musical features such as melody, thematic content, rhythm, form and structure and harmony. This sonata has been chosen for analysis as it is the most popular Beethoven sonata within the performance circuit, as it is a well known piece worldwide. Secondly, Beethoven developed Sonata form, adding more thematic contrast and contrasting melodies reflecting his own personal struggles with his progressive loss of hearing and also his failures in his love life which all contributed to the passion and despair that is depicted within the sonatas during his second compositional stage in his career.

Composers since the early classical era have used sonata form to express through music ideas which are at once complex and unified. This form contains a variety of themes and permutations of these themes, but is brought together into a comprehensible whole when these excerpts reappear. Beethoven, in the first movement of his Piano Sonata Opus 2 Number 3 utilizes this form to its full potential, modifying the typical structure in his characteristic way.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven are two of the greatest composers ever to write music. Both men lived in the early 18th and 19th century, but their music and influences are still felt today. The men faced similar experiences, yet they both lead very different lives. All together the pieces that these men composed amounts to over 300 published, and unpublished works of art. The people of their time period often had mixed feelings about these men, some “complained that Mozart’s music presented them with too many ideas and that his melodies moved from one to the next faster than audiences could follow, yet the ideas themselves seem effortless and natural, clear and

Ever since his father began teaching him as a child to play the violin and clavier, any keyboard instrument such as the harpsichord, Ludwig van Beethoven has been amongst the most renowned and influential composers of music. Despite the harsh punishments and mistreatment Beethoven suffered through while practicing with his father, he still managed to become a “prodigy” at a rather young age, having his first public recital at around seven years old. After his first recital role music played in his continued to grow, and soon after dropping out of school to pursue music “full time” he published his first composition.

Only a few composers in the history of time have ever successfully left their mark throughout our musical world we live in today. It’s been over two hundred years since the birth of Beethoven and his music still speaks to us today as he originally expressed and composed it. Ludwig Van Beethoven was born in the city of Bonn Germany on December 16th 1770 and has since been one of the most influential composers known to man. A common theme of early age learning and mastering seems to emerge in Beethoven’s life because while living in a musical family as a child, his father taught him how to play the piano, violin and in addition how to compose musical pieces since he was four years of age. A few short years later, he gave his first public piano performance at the age of seven. While Beethoven certainly gained a lot of knowledge from his peers, he also supported his family by giving music lessons and also by playing in the court orchestra. In the year 1792, Beethoven worked under an Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn and by the year 1800, his compositions established him as a strong Mozart successor.

Rondo Op.51 No.1 in C major by Beethoven • Rondo: a musical form characterized by a repeated theme that alternate with other themes • Opus: a number given chronologically order the works of a composer • This rondo was composed between 1796 and 1797. • About the composer and period: Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770-1827) • Period: Classical (1750-1820)/early Romantic (about 1820/30s-1910) • Nationality: German • Contemporaries: Haydn, Mozart, Clementi • Works included: • 32 piano sonatas (including the 'Pathetique'; the 'Moonlight'; the 'Appassionata'); bagatelles, 6 sonatinas • 9 symphonies - including the 'Eroica' (3rd); 'Pastoral' (6th); the 'Choral' (9th) • chamber music - including 9 piano trios, 5 cello and piano sonatas

In Beethoven’s second period he generated many of his most famous works. This period lasted from about 1800 to 1820. It was in this time span that Beethoven wrote symphonies three through eight, two piano concertos, one violin

Beethoven contributed one of the most significant musical developments through his fifth and ninth symphonies. He used a musical motive as the basic of his entire piece. (Beethoven described the motive as “Fate knocks at the door”.) It was the first time in history that anyone had done such a thing for a multi-movement piece. Beethoven’s contribution has become a norm in the music world, even to this day.

The early piano sonatas of Beethoven deserve special mention. Although his first published examples of concertos and trios and the first two symphonies are beneath the masterpieces of Mozart and Haydn, the piano sonatas bear an unmistakably Beethovian stamp: grandiose in scope and length, and innovative in their range of expression. The sonatas were able to move expression from terrible rage to peals of laughter to deep depression so suddenly. Capturing this unpredictable style in his music, a new freedom of expression which broke the bounds of Classical ideals, was to position Beethoven as a disturbed man in the minds of some of his contemporaries. Furthermore, he was to be seen as the father of Romanticism and the single most important innovator of music in the minds of those after him. (Bookspan 27).

He was born in the German town of Bonn on the 16th of December 1770. His grandfather Ludwig and his father Johann were both musicians. Johann was to act as little Ludwig's first music teacher, but Ludwig soon changed to the court organist C. G. Neefe. Passing eleven years of age, Ludwig deputized for Neefe, and at twelve had his first music published. He then stayed as Neefe's assistant until 1787, when at seventeen, he took off for Vienna. Even though Vienna was to be his home for the rest of his life, this first visit was short. On hearing that his mother was dying, he quickly returned to Bonn. Five years later he finally moved to Vienna to live and work.

Ludwig Van Beethoven 's Quasi Una Fantasia, later named and more famously known as The Moonlight Sonata, is a piano piece that can be portrayed and analyzed in a multitude of ways. The piece was published in 1801, during a period of great experimentation in Beethoven 's music. This can help explain how the piece addresses a broad range of emotions that vary from romance to frustration to anger. The first movement is full of all of those feelings and more, however it is the pianist who decides which of them will triumph over the rest.

Distinctive harmonic departure from the classical sonata form convention fills the movement with drama. In classical sonata form convention, tonality is to be established in the first theme with no ambiguity so as to make contrast with the second theme, which is normally set in the dominant. In the first movement of Beethoven’s sonata Op.31