Ludwig Van Beethoven Research Papers

The legacy of Ludwig van Beethoven does not lose its attractive power even in 21st century, causing unflagging interest of researchers, performers, teachers, and listeners. Ludwig van Beethoven is considered the key figure of classical music in the period between classicism and romanticism. Even now he is one of the most performed composers in the world. He is considered unsurpassed master of sonatas, although he wrote in all the genres that existed in his time, including opera, ballet, music for dramatic plays, choral compositions.

Ludwig van Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770 in Bonn. Beethoven received his primary musical education under the guidance of his father, the chorister of court orchestra of the elector of Cologne in Bonn.

From 1780, Ludwig studied under the court organist Christian Gottlob Neefe. In the incomplete 12 years, Beethoven could successfully detach Neefe; at the same time, he issued his first work (12 variations for the clavier on the march of E. K. Dressler). In 1787, Beethoven visited in Vienna A. Mozart, who highly appreciated his art of pianist improviser. The first stay of Beethoven in the musical capital of Europe was short-lived (having known that his mother was dying, he returned to Bonn) (Lockwood 2005).
In 1789, Beethoven enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bonn but did not study there for long. In 1792, Ludwig van Beethoven finally moved to Vienna, where he first improved in composition under Franz Josef Haydn (with whom he did not have strong relationship), then under I.B. Shenk, I.G. Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri (Jones 1998). At that time, Beethoven began to perform as a pianist and soon won the fame of an unrivaled improviser and the brightest virtuoso.
Soon Beethoven became one of the most fashionable in Vienna salon pianists. The public debut of Beethoven-pianist took place in 1795. In the same year his first major publications were dated: three piano trios op. 1 and three sonatas for piano op. 2. According to contemporaries, in the Beethoven performance a stormy temperament and virtuosic brilliance were combined with a fertility of imagination and depth of feeling (Burnham 1995). Not surprisingly, his deepest and most original works of this period are intended for pianoforte. Ludwig van Beethoven's piano work is the subject of numerous studies. Even during the life of the composer, it aroused quite a bit of controversy. And at present, many problems related to the understanding of the author's intention remain unresolved (Hatten 1994).
It is known that he highly appreciated the piano with the “Viennese” type of mechanics.

As early as in the Bonn period, the composer clearly preferred the instruments of Stein, and later in Vienna - the instruments of Streicher. Both types of pianoforte were connected by one tradition. In 1792, I.A. Stein died, leaving a factory for his daughter - later Nanette Streicher. In 1794, the Stein factory moved to Vienna, which was at that time the largest musical center. The pianofortes of Stein-Streicher were the most characteristic instruments of the “Viennese” type; the instruments of other Viennese masters were just an imitation (Wu 2007). The advantage of Streicher's pianoforte was that its keys gave the possibility of a superficial, light, sensitive carcass and a melodious, clear, though fragile timbre. Beethoven welcomed the desire of the pianoforte master to give his instruments a melodious sound. Nevertheless, Beethoven recognized the best instrument with the “Viennese” type of mechanics unfit for himself, considering it “too” good because “such an instrument deprives me of the freedom to develop my own tone” (Wu 2007,

21).
Beethoven, in his ‘burst’ nature, gravitated toward more powerful sonorities, appropriate to the scale and vigorous style of performance, causing orchestral effects. In 1818, the Englishman T. Broadwood invented an instrument with an extended range and with a heavier, deep, and viscous keyboard. This pianoforte was much more suitable for the performing style of Beethoven. Namely for it the last 5 sonatas and Variations of the Op.120 were written. The Broadwood instrument possessed, on the one hand, the ability for more intense transmission of feelings and on the other hand, compensated for the growing deafness of the great musician.
Until 1802, Ludwig Beethoven created 20 piano sonatas, including “Sonata Pathetical” (1798) and the “Moonlight Sonata” (No. 2 of the two “sonatas-fantasies” op. 27, 1801). In a number of sonatas, Beethoven overcomes the classical ternary scheme, placing between the slow part and the ending an additional part - a menuet or a scherzo, thus the sonata cycle is likened to a symphony. Between 1795 and 1802, he wrote the first three piano concertos, the first two symphonies (1800 and 1802), six string quartets (compositions 18, 1800), eight sonatas for violin and piano (including “Spring Sonata,” op. 24, 1801), 2 sonatas for cello and piano op. 5 (1796), septet for oboe, French horn, bassoon and strings op. 20 (1800), many other chamber-ensemble compositions. This period includes Beethoven's only ballet “The Creation of Prometheus” (1801), one of the themes of which later was used in the finale of the “Eroica Symphony” and in the monumental piano cycle of 15 variations with a fugue (1806) (The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 2001). Since his youth, Beethoven amazed and admired his contemporaries with the scale of his ideas, the inexhaustible ingenuity of their embodiment and the tireless desire for a new (Lockwood 2005).
The line between the symphonic art of Beethoven and the symphony of the 18th century is primarily a theme, an ideological content, the character of musical images. The Beethoven’ symphony, addressed to the huge human masses, needed monumental forms of “proportionality to the number, breathing, vision of the thousands” (Burnham 1995, p.28). And indeed, Beethoven widely and freely pushes the boundaries of his symphonies. So, Allegro of Eroica almost twice exceeds Allegroof the largest of Mozart's symphonies – “Jupiter,” and the gigantic dimensions of the Ninth are generally incommensurable with none of the previously written symphonic works (Hatten 1994).
Passing through the labyrinth of spiritual searches, Beethoven in the Third Symphony found his heroic-epic theme. For the first time in art with such a depth of generalizations, the passionate drama of the era, its shocks, and catastrophe was refracted, along with the human, winning the right to freedom, love, and joy.
Beginning with the Third Symphony, the heroic theme inspires Beethoven to create the most outstanding symphonic works - the Fifth Symphony, the overtures Egmont, Coriolanus, Leonore No. 3. Already at the end of his life, this theme is reviving with unattainable artistic perfection and scope in the Ninth Symphony.
In the late 1790-ies, Ludwig Beethoven began to develop deafness; not later than 1801 he realized that this disease is progressing and threatens with complete loss of hearing.

In October 1802, being in the village of Heiligenstadt near Vienna, Beethoven sent his two brothers a document of extremely pessimistic content, known as the “Heiligenstadt testament.” Soon, however, he managed to overcome the spiritual crisis and returned to creative work (Jones 1998). A further period was the most productive in the work of Beethoven. Namely during this period he wrote the most significant works, in particular almost all the symphonies, beginning with the third one, “Eroica”; he wrote the overtures Egmont, Coriolanus, the opera Fidelio, many sonatas, including the “Appassionata

Sonata.”
Beethoven's creative activity of the late period is distinguished by contrasts; his music of those times called for extreme actions, emotional experience, and lyricism. Three years before the death of Beethoven, friends organized a concert from his works, in which the Ninth Symphony and excerpts from the “Solemn Mass” were performed. The success was great but because of the deafness, Beethoven did not hear the applause and the audience’ cry of admiration (Jones 1998). Ludwig van Beethoven died on March 26, 1827 in Vienna in Austria.
Burnham believes that in the work of Beethoven the features of a new musical culture and new forms of compositional work have concentrated. Thanks to the influence of philosophical ideas on the worldview of the composer, a shift in the history of music took place, the essence of which is expressed in the growth and deepening of personal consciousness, in the overturning of his views on the metaphysical nature of music, conditioned by Hegel's philosophy (Burnham 1995).
The creative activities of Beethoven is imbued with revolutionary heroism, high ideas and images; it is full of drama and huge emotional power. “Through struggle - to victory” - this is the main idea, with convincing, all-pervading power embodied in his Third and Fifth Symphonies. Beethoven's artistic testament can be considered a tragedy-optimistic Ninth symphony. The struggle for freedom, the brotherhood of people, the belief in the victory of light over the gloom are imprinted with extraordinary vividness and convincing in the invocatory, life-affirming finale - the ode “To Joy” on the words of F. Schiller. High humanism, genuine democracy, heroic greatness, inexhaustible spiritual wealth, wisdom, and humanity are contained in the creations of a genius German composer. To convey his thoughts and feelings, he always found new expressive means, transforming and enriching traditional musical genres. A true innovator, an uncompromising fighter, he embodied bold ideological concepts in surprisingly simple, clear music, accessible to the understanding of the widest circles of listeners.
The most advanced contemporaries of Beethoven immediately appreciated the importance of his works for subsequent epochs: “Only a few of his creations were published, as they have forever made themselves famous” (Burnham 1995, 11). After Beethoven's death, interest in the composer's early works markedly increased and a tendency appeared to their analysis from the point of view of the evolution of his style. Beethoven's piano creative activity was a powerful impetus to the development of performing art. It had a tremendous impact on the piano music of his era. Beethoven's work in all subsequent epochs not only did not lose its significance but also evokes an ever deeper interest due to the richness of the imagination and the fiery impulses of fantasy. The achievements of Beethoven were continued in the works of the greatest composers of the subsequent romantic era.