Beeth Oven!
Thank you sir for the 7th Symphony, the Pathetique Sonata, the Moonlight, and 9th Symphony in particular. You raised the bar and showed what else music can be.
I think he would have regretted those works if he saw what modern music was like, perhaps wishing he had never written a symphony. As a matter of fact when his grave was opened they found him decomposing.
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Walter Murphy’s disco instrumental
*Interesting (to me, at least) note: his sister, Lucy, monoplized the family piano to play classical music.
Beethoven’s favorite works include Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, and Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet.
He never got his picture on bubble gum cards, did he?
He would have been 253, had he lived.
And he would have a hearing aid.
And it would have worked. My classical pianist friend is an amateur expert on Ludwig, and says LVB’s hearing disorder is treatable nowdays.
Maybe he’d get cochlear implants.
Few things give me as much pleasure as Beethoven’s music. Desert-island wise, I would HAVE to have the symphonies, concertos, and sonatas at the very least.
You have to wonder if he had any idea of how immortal his work would turn out to be. By several accounts he did know his worth, but…more than two centuries of being considered the enduring master; did he guess that?
He must have known he was creating unique works in his time. Others certainly appreciated him since he made a living by publishing and performing his music.
Very true. Supposedly he did have a pretty healthy ego; one quote attributed to him is:
If Beethoven had died in an airplane crash at the age of 22, the history of music would have been very different. As would the history of aviation.
(Hat tip: Tom Stoppard)
I was a big Peanuts fan as a boy. My son was also. When he was in elementary school we used to read the strips out loud, each taking a part. (We did the same thing with Calvin and Hobbes.)
He’s 35 now, and we still wish each other a happy Beethoven’s birthday.
“Did someone mention Beethoven sweatshirts?”
“What a party! What a party! Cut the cake! Cut the cake!”
“All right, but I’ll just have a small glass.”
“Oh, I almost forgot–I got an electric train.
Now what am I going to do with an electric train?”
You remember Vladimir Pozner, the Soviet apologist who was buddies with Phil Donahue? He was a media darling in the USSR and then the RF, and he always pronounced it that way. No amount of gentle persuasion could convince him it was wrong.
Not likely in his case- the implants won’t process music. In any case, my friend said Beethoven’s ear disease/disease is now treatable.
They treated B’s second movement of his eighth piano sonata very nicely in A Boy Named Charlie Brown.
Disney’s treatment of B’s 6th Symphony in Fantasia was sublime.