Ludwig Van Beethoven was born on about December 16, 1770. It is interesting because his family didn’t actually know his birth date but they did know he was baptized into the Catholic Church on December 17 so they celebrated his birthday the day before. He was an extremely amazing pianist and composer. He was born in what is now Germany, and around the age twenty he moved to Austria. The craziest part about Beethoven is that he started to lose his hearing at the age of twenty and eventually he completely lost his hearing all the way. Even though he was considered completely deaf, he continued to write amazing pieces of music which are still played today.
Beethoven was first taught by his father but it didn’t last very long because of how harsh of an instructor his dad was. He was then taught by a couple other people before being taught by Christian Gottlob Neefe who had a tremendous influence on Beethoven’s work. By 1778 Beethoven didn’t only play the piano masterfully, but was taught how to play the organ and the viola. He had an amazing career which lead to many pieces that will be known for all time. Beethoven passed away on March 26, 1827 at the age of fifty-seven, not very old at all.
Beethoven is most known for his music in the western classical genre. He was also around during the time when music changed from the classical era to the romantic era. He played a very important role in this change which influenced composers for years to come, we are even still seeing the effects of his music in the world today. He wrote songs for many different types of music, piano pieces, viola pieces, or even full orchestra arrangements. The music he wrote is known for its three different phases all depending on what was going on in his life. His early classical period, his middle heroic period, and his late romantic period were the three phases of his music.
The first piece I chose to listen to was “Pathétique Sonata” which is a piano piece written by Beethoven. It is a very dramatic piece that tells a very smooth and intriguing story. The piece makes you want to feel like even though there is frustration there still might be hope. Towards the middle of the piece the tempo begins to accelerate which makes it feel like something important is happening. I really enjoyed this piece.
The second piece I listened to was “Moonlight Sonata” which is a more well known piece. The whole piece was very soft and very slow. This kind of made the piece seem a little melancholy. It repeated the same parts a lot, with slight differences such as the tempo or the volume. I enjoyed this piece because it was really soothing.
Overall Beethoven was a tremendous composer. His work has been well known for centuries now, and will continue to be well known for centuries to come. After having done the research for this paper I am definitely going to listen more to his music.
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