Beethoven: An Artistic Leader

By 1802, Beethoven was acknowledged throughout Europe as the foremost pianist of his time, the foremost composer for the piano of his time, and also a symphonist who ranked with Haydn and Mozart. In this period, he also began to lose his hearing. Beethoven's middle period was characterized by longer works, emphasizing technical skill and concentrated thematic development. Based on Carl Czerny, Beethoven declared, "I am not satisfied with my previous works; from right here on I shall follow a new path" (cited in Wallace, 1986, p. 50).

The political and philosophical background of Beethoven's music is also important as it influenced both his alternative of thematic material and the methods exactly where he created those themes. Beethoven's deep commitment towards the high ideals of political liberty and religious tolerance embodied during the French Enlightenment had a direct influence on his work. He believed strongly that, "through his work, the creative artist had the duty to uplift [and] to enable [others] . . . to increase mankind, to inspire other human beings to strive for ever greater achievements" (Kirby, 1970, p. 200).

One of Beethoven's best contributions to the music world was his ideas for developing a symphony. He had the potential to take a motif--the smallest unit of an idea, consisting of sometimes less than four notes--and repeat them to make a large-scale work. This extensive development of a small, repeated

 

Although Beethoven was known across Europe like a pianist and composer, several musicians did not understand the nature of this sort of bold treatment of musical ideas and as a result did not eagerly accept them (Grout & Palisca, 1988, p. 635). For example, once the musicians of Count von Andreas Cyrillovich Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador to Vienna, to whom Beethoven dedicated three Op. 59 string quartets, attempted to play the Quartet in F (No. 1 in the set), they notion Beethoven was playing a joke on them. Muzio Clementi, a renowned London pianist, as soon as said to him, "Surely you do not look at these works being music?" to which Beethoven responded, "Oh, they are not for you, but for your later age" (Grout & Palisca, p. 640).

Arnold, D., and Fortune, N. (1971). The Beethoven reader. New York: Norton.

Comparing the finished works on the sketches that preceded them provides proof that the music of Beethoven is often a major musical bridge. Some say it separates the Classical and Romantic periods, and others say it separates the modern day and the conventional periods of composition. In any case, the music of Beethoven is 1 with the high elements during the occidental music tradition, drawing on what came ahead of it and predicting significantly of what would and will occur later.

musical subject was then named motivic development, which Beethoven was the very first to use extensively and to master. He expanded these motifs through several instruments within the orchestra and via rhythmic juxtaposition (Arnold & Fortune, 1971, p. 305). Long symphonies themselves had been a novel notion for his time and foreign to Classical tradition, in that now the concentration of an audience was demanded. For example, in his Eroica Symphony, Beethoven enlarges the first section with the very first movement to outrageous and long (at least for his time) proportions via long, sophisticated motivic development of numerous musical themes (Grout & Palisca, 1988, p. 637). The growth in the themes through.

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