Ludwig Van Beetoven

2 Pages 399 Words

Beethoven was born in Bonn. His father’s harsh discipline and alcoholism made his childhood and adolescence difficult. At the age of 18, after his mother’s death, Beethoven placed himself at the head of the family, taking responsibility for his two younger brothers, both of whom followed him when he later moved to Vienna, Austria. Beethoven’s music is generally divided into three main creative periods. The first, or early, period extends to about 1802, when the composer made reference to a “new manner” or “new way” in connection with his art. The second, or middle, period extends to about 1812, after the completion of his Seventh and Eighth symphonies. The third, or late, period emerged gradually; Beethoven composed its pivotal work, the Hammerklavier Sonata, in 1818. Beethoven’s late style is especially innovative, and his last five quartets, written between 1824 and 1826, can be regarded as marking the onset of a fourth creative period. The celebrated Symphony No. 5 in C minor op. 67 from 1808 is the most thematically concentrated of Beethoven’s works. Variants of the four-note motif that begins this symphony drive all four movements. The dramatic turning point in the symphony-where a sense of foreboding, struggle, or mystery yields to a triumphant breakthrough-comes at the transition to the final movement, where the entrance of the trombones reinforces the music. Beethoven uses here a large-scale polarity between the darker sound of C minor and the brighter, more radiant effect of C major, which is held largely in reserve until the finale. The series of gigantic masterpieces of Beethoven’s third period include the technically demanding Hammerklavier Sonata, completed in 1818, about which he correctly predicted on account of its challenges that “it will be played fifty years hence,” and the Diabelli Variations. The latter work for piano transforms a trivial waltz by Viennese publisher Anton Diabelli into an ...