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sometimes I miss my piano
Jul. 13th, 2007 12:01 am( The Heiligenstadt Testament )
I remember assuming that Beethoven's angriest music must have been composed after he had lost most of his hearing, out of frustration. I learned later, when we studied him in college, that this is false- a lot of his more aggressive music was instead written while he was losing his hearing. After this letter was written, much of his music became more contemplative; he played a lot with stretching the boundaries of common forms, doing things like writing a fugue based on the interval of a fourth instead of a more traditional fifth. Or at least that's what I remember my professor telling me. The 9th Symphony and its most famous Ode to Joy was one of the last things completed before he died.
I remember assuming that Beethoven's angriest music must have been composed after he had lost most of his hearing, out of frustration. I learned later, when we studied him in college, that this is false- a lot of his more aggressive music was instead written while he was losing his hearing. After this letter was written, much of his music became more contemplative; he played a lot with stretching the boundaries of common forms, doing things like writing a fugue based on the interval of a fourth instead of a more traditional fifth. Or at least that's what I remember my professor telling me. The 9th Symphony and its most famous Ode to Joy was one of the last things completed before he died.
