WHEN Beethoven met his hero, Mozart, in Vienna in 1787, the latter reportedly said: ‘Watch out for that boy. One day he will give the world something to talk about.’ This year will see a celebratory calendar of events that dwarfs anything devoted to any other composer in our lifetime; even then, it will be impossible to showcase little more than his fabled oeuvre—in 45 active years, he wrote more than 650 works.
The German federal government declared the legacy of Ludwig van Beethoven to be of utmost importance to the nation, pledging €30 million towards the 250th-anniversary celebrations of his birth, in December 1770 in Bonn. The city where he spent his first 21 years has celebrated him with an annual Beethovenfest since 1845—this year’s Beethoven 250 will be a 365-day event. In seven years’ time, Vienna is set to be the centrepiece of the 200th anniversary of his death.
Few composers’ big tunes embrace popular culture in the same way: the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, the startling opening to the Fifth Symphony and Ode to Joy, adopted as the Anthem to Europe. His importance goes way beyond that, however. Beethoven’s bold use of harmony and discord bridged the refined classical form of Mozart and Haydn with the Romantic era, setting the musical scene for at least another 100 years.
Beethoven’s progressive, orchestral scoring came from the depths of his imagination; partly because of his deafness, which began when he was only 26—theories about its cause range from syphillis and typhus to his practice of staying awake by plunging his head in cold water.
Much was inspired by his unhappy love life (he never married). Musicologists still disagree about the identity of his ‘immortal beloved’ and whether he fathered a love-child. The ceaseless innovation that set him apart from contemporaries has just as many roots in the turbulent times in which he grew up.
この記事は Country Life UK の January 08, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Country Life UK の January 08, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
