December 16 - Ludwig van Beethoven (The Musical Birthday Series, 4th Annual Cycle)

Previous posts for December 16th are here: Ludwig van Beethoven (2019) and (2020), and Noël Coward; François-Adrien Boieldieu; Alice Parker (2021)

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Ludwig van Beethoven’s (16 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) birthday is generally celebrated on December 16, although there is no documentary proof of the date.  We know for certain he was baptized on the 17th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three for the Fifth

The key of C minor is said to represent for Beethoven a "stormy, heroic tonality"; he uses it for "works of unusual intensity"; and it is "reserved for his most dramatic music". -- Wikipedia, s.v. "Beethoven and C minor"

 

When Ludwig sat down to compose

The symphony everyone knows,

He needed a brief

And decisive motif,

As the germ from which everything grows. 

 

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The  moxie that Ludwig devotes 

To the theme, with its famous four notes,

Meant “da da da dum”

Was in time to become

The most famous of musical quotes.

 

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Said Beethoven, “Nothing is finer

Than composing a work in c minor.

The rhetorical norms

For my musical storms

Were declared by the Cosmic Designer.”

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Two for the Sixth

According to Lewis Lockwood, Beethoven sketched an idea in 1803 labeled “murmurs of the brooks” with the words “the greater the Brook, the deeper the tone.”  – “Beethoven Symphony Basics at ESM,” www.esm.rochester.edu/beethoven/symphony-no-6/

When out by a forest or stream

He had an eccentric regime,

He'd pause by the brooklet

And write in his booklet

Whenever he thought of a theme.

 

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There are tropes which are clearly declarative

Of the symphony’s pastoral narrative,

But you don't need to dread

That they’re over your head,

The allusions aren’t really imperative.

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