Week 6 – Beethoven’s Blog

August 12, 2021
​Symphony No. 2 in D major Op. 36 Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major Op. 36 was the first symphony of his that I ever played. I thought it was so difficult. So many fast notes, rapid key changes, offbeat accents, and such tempos! But the second movement, the slow movement, was probably the ...
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Week 5 – Beethoven’s Blog

August 12, 2021
Piano Sonata No. 14 in C♯ minor “Quasi una fantasia”, Op. 27, No. 2, popularly known as the “Moonlight Sonata” After his Symphony no. 1 Opus 21 of 1799-1800, Beethoven turned his attention to piano sonatas and chamber music including sonatas for violin and piano and a trio for flute, violin, and viola. In 1801 he published ...
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Week 4 – Beethoven’s Blog

August 12, 2021
Symphony No. 1 in C Major Opus 21 While in Vienna from 1792 to 1800 Beethoven established himself as an important performer and composer. String quartets, string trios, piano trios, and piano sonatas solidified his reputation as a worthy successor to Mozart (d.1791) and Haydn (d.1803). He worked within the standard forms of the day ...
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Week 3 – Beethoven’s Blog

August 3, 2021
The string quartet was a very important medium for Beethoven, He wrote 16 of them from early in his career in Vienna to the very last piece he wrote. Today we will look at the 4th in the set of 6 of Opus 18 (1798-1800). The 4th is in the key of c minor, the only one ...
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Week 2 – Beethoven’s Blog

August 3, 2021
The 32 Piano Sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven represent one of the most monumental achievements in all of western music. From the humorous to the elegant, from the beautiful to the searingly profound, these sonatas are a remarkable achievement. The Sonata for Piano in c minor “the Pathetique” (1797-98) is one of his most beloved compositions. ...
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Week 1 – Bob’s Beethoven Blog

August 3, 2021
In 1791, the 21 year old Ludwig van Beethoven, moved from Bonn to Vienna, the musical capital of Europe, where he lived until his death in 1827. His first work to be published in Vienna was the Opus 1, a set of three piano trios, each with four movements for piano, violin, and cello. Throughout ...
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