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.
Denne historien er fra January 08, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra January 08, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
