United States or Macao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Beethoven's hearing was sufficiently intact at this time to enable him to hear his symphonies performed, an important matter while his judgment was being formed. The Prometheus Ballet Music, opus 43, consisting of overture, introduction and sixteen numbers, was first performed early in 1801, and achieved immediate success, so much so that it was published at once as pianoforte music.
Variations occupy a prominent part in all his works, whether chamber-music, sonatas or symphonies. They are introduced perhaps with best effect in the works of his last years, in the Ninth Symphony, and in the last quartets. He accepted the order with pleasure and began work on it at once on reaching his summer quarters.
Always so: always in your utmost radiance of sunshine a shadow; and in your softest outburst of Lydian or Spheral symphonies something of eating Care! Then too, in the Court-circle itself, "is Trajan pleased," or are all things well?
Above all, the directors should grant recognition to masters like Joseph Haydn who were in advance of their own times and who seem now and then to belong to our own. The only examples of Joseph Haydn's immense work that the present generation knows are two or three symphonies, rarely and perfunctorily performed. This is the same as saying that we do not know him at all.
It often causes one regret to see symphonies of magnificent colour wasted here in pictures of boating men; and there, in pictures of café corners; and we have arrived at a degree of complex intellectuality which is no longer satisfied with these rudimentary themes. It has indulged in useless exaggerations, faults of composition and of harmony, and all this cannot be denied.
"Anon, out of the earth a fabric huge Rose like an exhalation, with the sound Of dulcet symphonies, and voices sweet, Built like a temple, where pilasters round Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid With golden architrave; nor did there want Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven; The roof was fretted gold."
He was apparently absorbed in his breakfast, and Beethoven's Symphonies were not mentioned in his presence until evening, when Mr. Bovyer, true to his appointment, sat chatting for two or three hours with Mr. Winthrop and his other guests. As usual, I sat a silent listener, comprehending readily a good many things that were said; but some of the conversation took me quite beyond my depth.
To make it capable of supporting the human voice in their symphonies, they filled up the intervals of the fifths and thirds in each scale, and increased the number of strings from eighteen to twenty-eight, retaining all the original chromatic tones, but reducing the capacity of the instrument; for, instead of commencing in the lower E in the bass, it commenced in C, a sixth above, and terminated in G in the octave below; and, in consequence, the instrument became much more melodious and capable of accompanying the human voice.
"Signor Gambara, who thinks himself a great composer, does not seem to me very clever in other ways. An excellent fellow with some sense and wit, and sometimes very agreeable, especially when he has had a few glasses of wine which does not often happen, for he is desperately poor; night and day he toils at imaginary symphonies and operas instead of trying to earn an honest living.
Berlioz replied lately to a letter of mine, in which I had asked him, amongst other things, to make me a present of all his scores, if he could get them gratis. That he cannot do, because his earlier publishers will give him no more free copies. I confess that it would interest me very much to study his symphonies carefully in full score.
Word Of The Day