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Beethoven And His Contemporaries
During the course of his lifetime, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) enjoyed relationships with many of his musical contemporaries. Beethoven was famously difficult to get along with, and the history of his relationships with contemporaries is littered with arguments, misunderstandings, and reconciliations. Beethoven had well-known fallings out with his one-time teacher, Joseph Haydn, with the piano virtuoso and composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the German composer Carl Maria von Weber and the Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini. Conversely, he regarded Franz Schubert positively, praising the latter's compositions on his deathbed. Luigi Cherubini Beethoven met the composer Luigi Cherubini on the latter's journey to Vienna in 1805. Cherubini, a longtime resident of Paris, was invited to mount a production of his opera ''Die Tage der Gefahr'' (or ''Der Wasserträger'') after the success of his 1791 opera '' Lodoïska'', which was staged by Emanuel Schikaneder on 23 March 1803 at th ...
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Berlin Beethoven Hayden Mozart Denkmal BW 2
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituent states, Berlin is surrounded by the State of Brandenburg and contiguous with Potsdam, Brandenburg's capital. Berlin's urban area, which has a population of around 4.5 million, is the second most populous urban area in Germany after the Ruhr. The Berlin-Brandenburg capital region has around 6.2 million inhabitants and is Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions. Berlin straddles the banks of the Spree, which flows into the Havel (a tributary of the Elbe) in the western borough of Spandau. Among the city's main topographical features are the many lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs formed by the Spree, Havel and Dahme, the largest of which is Lake Müggelsee. Due to its location ...
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Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. He is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language, his work having a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day.. Goethe took up residence in Weimar in November 1775 following the success of his first novel, ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (1774). He was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, in 1782. Goethe was an early participant in the ''Sturm und Drang'' literary movement. During his first ten years in Weimar, Goethe became a member of the Duke's privy council (1776–1785), sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening of silver min ...
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Nikolaus II, Prince Esterházy
Nicholas II, Prince Esterházy ( hu, Esterházy II. Miklós, german: Nikolaus II Esterházy; 12 December 176524 November 1833) was a wealthy Hungarian prince. He served the Austrian Empire and was a member of the famous Esterházy family. He is especially remembered for his art collection and for his role as the last patron of Joseph Haydn. After the Congress of Vienna, his family was considered one of the mediatised houses for their former Sovereign (Bavarian after 1806) Principality of Edelstetten ( Edelstetten Abbey), Life Nikolaus was born in Vienna on 12 December 1765, the son of Prince Anton Esterházy and his first wife, Maria Theresia, Countess Erdödy de Monyorokerek et Monoszlo (1745–1782). His father Anton was the son of Nikolaus I, whom he succeeded as reigning prince on the latter's death in 1790. In 1783, the younger Nikolaus, aged 17, married the 15-year-old Maria Josepha, Princess von und zu Liechtenstein (1768–1845). According to Mraz (2009b), the m ...
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, in the Holy Roman Empire, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court b ...
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Maynard Solomon
Maynard Elliott Solomon (January 5, 1930 – September 28, 2020) was an American music executive and musicologist, a co-founder of Vanguard Records as well as a music producer."Maynard Solomon" in ''Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians'', vol. 5 ( N. Slonimsky & D. Kuhn, 2001). Later, he became known for his biographical studies of Viennese Classical composers, specifically Beethoven (writing an influential biography and an award-winning collection of essays), Mozart (biography), and Schubert (Solomon was the first to openly propose the highly disputed theory of Schubert's homosexuality in a scholarly setting). Education Having attended New York's High School of Music & Art, Solomon graduated Phi Beta Kappa''Billboard'', 19 November 1966, featuring Vanguard Records from Brooklyn College, CUNY, with a BA in 1950, subsequently pursuing graduate studies at Columbia University from 1950 to 1952. In 1979 he became adjunct associate professor at the Graduate School, CUNY, and betw ...
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Ferdinand Ries
Ferdinand Ries (baptised 28 November 1784 – 13 January 1838) was a German composer. Ries was a friend, pupil and secretary of Ludwig van Beethoven. He composed eight symphonies, a violin concerto, nine piano concertos (the first concerto is not published), three operas, and numerous other works, including 26 string quartets. In 1838 he published a collection of reminiscences of his teacher Beethoven, co-written with Franz Wegeler. The symphonies, some chamber works—most of them with piano—his violin concerto and his piano concertos have been recorded, exhibiting a style which, given his connection to Beethoven, lies between the Classical and early Romantic styles. Early life Ries was born into a musical family of Bonn. His grandfather, Johann Ries (1723–1784), was appointed court trumpeter to the Elector of Cologne at Bonn. Ries was the eldest son of the violinist and Archbishopric Music Director Franz Anton Ries (1755–1846) and the brother of violinist and co ...
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Archduke Maximilian Francis Of Austria
Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria (Maximilian Franz Xaver Joseph Johann Anton de Paula Wenzel; 8 December 1756 – 26 July 1801) was Elector of Cologne and Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. He was the youngest child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. He was the last fully functioning Elector of Cologne and the second employer and patron of the young Ludwig van Beethoven. Biography Maximilian Francis was born December 8, 1756, on his father’s 48th birthday, in the Hofburg Palace, Vienna. In 1780, he succeeded his uncle Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine as ''Hochmeister'' ( Grand Master) of the ''Deutscher Orden'' (Teutonic Knights). In 1784, he became Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, living in the Electoral residence at Bonn. He remained in that office until his death in exile. In his capacity as chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire for Italy and as the Pope's deputy he crowned as Emperor in Frankfurt first his brother Le ...
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Piano Trios, Op
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the gre ...
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Gradus Ad Parnassum
The Latin phrase ''gradus ad Parnassum'' means "steps to Parnassus". It is sometimes shortened to ''gradus''. The name ''Parnassus'' was used to denote the loftiest part of a mountain range in central Greece, a few kilometres north of Delphi, of which the two summits, in Classical times, were called ''Tithorea'' and '' Lycoreia''. In Greek mythology, one of the peaks was sacred to Apollo and the nine Muses, the inspiring deities of the arts, and the other to Dionysus. The phrase has often been used to refer to various books of instruction, or guides, in which ''gradual'' progress in literature, language instruction, music, or the arts in general, is sought. Classics The first application of the phrase is to a kind of Latin or Greek dictionary, in which the quantities of the vowels are marked in the words, to help beginners to understand the principles of Latin verse composition, in relation to the values of the metrical feet. The first 'step' or lesson is contained in the title phr ...
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Johann Joseph Fux
Johann Joseph Fux (; – 13 February 1741) was an Austrian composer, music theory, music theorist and pedagogy, pedagogue of the late Baroque music, Baroque era. His most enduring work is not a musical composition but his treatise on counterpoint, ''Gradus ad Parnassum#Music and art, Gradus ad Parnassum'', which has become the single most influential book on the Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Palestrinian style of Renaissance music, Renaissance polyphony. Life Fux's exact date of birth is unknown. He was born to a peasant family in Langegg bei Graz, Hirtenfeld, Styria, Austria. Relatively little is known about his early life, but likely he went to nearby Graz for music lessons. In 1680 he was accepted at the Jesuit Ferdinandeum University there, where his musical talent became apparent. From 1685 until 1688 he served as organist at St. Moritz in Ingolstadt. Sometime during this period he must have made a trip to Italy, as evidenced by the strong influence of Arcangelo Corelli, ...
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Johann Georg Albrechtsberger
Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (3 February 1736 – 7 March 1809) was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist, and one of the teachers of Ludwig van Beethoven. He was a friend of Haydn and Mozart. Biography Albrechtsberger was born at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna. He originally studied music at Melk Abbey and philosophy at a Benedictine seminary in Vienna, and became one of the most learned and skilful contrapuntists of his age. Albrechtsberger's earliest classmates included Michael Haydn and Franz Joseph Aumann. After being employed as organist at Raab in 1755 and Maria Taferl in 1757, he was appointed Thurnermeister back at Melk Abbey. In 1772 he was appointed organist to the court of Vienna, and in 1792 Kapellmeister of St. Stephen's Cathedral. His fame as a theorist attracted to him in the Austrian capital a large number of pupils, some of whom afterwards became eminent musicians. Among these were Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ignaz Moscheles, Josef Weigl, Ludwig-Wilhelm Te ...
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