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Ludwig Beethoven And Joseph Haydn Talented Composers History Essay

Paper Type: Free Essay Subject: History
Wordcount: 2502 words Published: 1st Jan 2015

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Ludwig van Beethoven and Joseph Haydn are both talented and amazing composers. They are very talented and they worked their way up to become what they are. They are the most admired composers of all time. They thought us about music and hard work and determination to achieve our dreams and the love for music. They wrote many symphonies and everyone loved them very much. Their works were well known and very popular. They share many same personalities but at the same time they are very different. They both are composers and write music for everyone. There are many similar and different things about them and I’m going to tell you about them.

Joseph Haydn was an Australian composer. He was born on March 31, 1732 and died in May 31, 1809. He was one of the most important, prolific and prominent composers of the classic period. He was called the father of symphony and the father of the string quartet. Haydn became known as the composer of the Classic period from the years 1750 to the year 1825.  This was a period when reason, logic, and restraint in the arts were admired.  The Classic period prized clarity and simplicity in its music, as well as an orderly restraint from too much emotion.  Haydn’s music was loved throughout Europe.  He wrote music his entire life, and some of his most admired pieces were composed late in his life.  In all, he wrote 104 symphonies, 83 string quartets, 60 piano sonatas, 23 operas, 4 oratorios, plus many concertos, masses and choral works.  He died at the age of 77. He was instrumental in the development of the piano trio and the evolution of the sonata form. Joseph Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for wealthy Hungarians. He was isolated from the other composers and trends in music at the time, until he was forced to be original. Haydn was a close friend of another famous composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was also the teacher of Ludwig van Beethoven, the other famous composer that I am comparing and contrasting with Joseph. According to Haydn, his childhood family was extremely musical, and usually sang together and with their neighbors. Haydn was one of three sons of Mathias Haydn and Anna Maria Koller. His father was a master wheelwright who loved music. He played the harp, while Haydn’s mother sang the melodies. Anna Maria was a cook for Count Karl Anton Harrach before she married Mathias. Haydn’s brother, Michael, also composed music and became slightly famous. His youngest brother, Johann Evangelist, sang tenor in the church choir of the Esterhazy Court. Haydn’s family is quiet musical, and Haydn was just as musical as all of them. Haydn had a amazing voice and talent in music. Johann Franz, impressed by Haydn’s voice, insisted that Haydn’s parents allow Haydn to live with him to study music. As you can see, many people were impressed with Joseph Haydn. Franz was a school principal and a choir director of a church. Haydn studied many things while living with Johann Franc. He studied not only music but many others such as religion, Latin, writing and arithmetic. Haydn was extremely successful in his education was dismissed from school at the young age of 18. Haydn earned a living by becoming a freelance musician, teaching music, and composing many symphonies and other music. He was hired as music director for Count Morzin. His name and compositions steadily became famous. During his time with Count Morzin, Haydn wrote 15 symphonies, concertos and, piano sonatas. He married Maria Anna Keller on November 26, 1760. In 1761, Haydn began his lifelong relationship with one of the wealthiest family that was of Hungarian nobility. It was the noble Esterhazy family. Haydn spent nearly 30 years of his life here. Haydn was hired as vice-Kapellmeister earning 400 gulden a year, and as time went on, his salary increased as well as his ranking within the noble court. Over time, he became the director of all the music in the vast royal household, and this was a family that dearly loved music. He conducted an orchestra employed by the family. Haydn continually composed original music to be performed in the Esterhazy palace. Although Haydn lived a good part of his life in a royal household, he never confused himself about who he was and how he related to the aristocracy.  He wrote: “I have associated with emperors, kings, and many great people, and I have heard many flattering things from them, but I would not live in familiar relations with such persons; I prefer to be close to people of my own standing. His music became very popular around everywhere. From 1791, Haydn spent four years in London composing music and experiencing life outside the royal court. His time in London was the most successful time and the high point of his career. He earned nearly 24,000 gulden in a single year. Imagine the worth of all that money back then! Haydn spent the last years of his life in Vienna composing only vocal pieces such as masses and oratorios. Haydn passed away in the middle of the night from old age. Mozart’s Requiem was performed at his funeral. He wrote many different symphonies like the symphony number 6 “morning” and the symphony number 7 “midday”. Haydn wrote a number of songs, providing nearly 400 British folk-song arrangements for the Edinburgh publisher Thomson, in addition to songs and cantatas in German and English. The two sets of Canzonettas written in England in 1794 and 1795 include settings of verses by the wife of Haydn’s London surgeon, Hunter. Haydn’s 108 symphonies, written between 1759 and 1795, range from works written for the local court orchestra of two oboes, two horns and strings, to more complicated work of his large scale London Symphonies. The twelve were written for performance in London under the direction of the German-born violinist and impresario Salomon during the composer’s two London visits. These are some facts about Joseph Haydn. Now I am going to state facts about the musical Ludwig van Beethoven, a master musician.

Beethoven was born in present-day Germany, he moved to Vienna in his early twenties and settled there, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. His hearing began to deteriorate in the late 1790s, yet he continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf. His determination and love of music kept him going. Beethoven was the grandson of a musician named Lodewijk van Beethoven, who lived from 1712-1773. Beethoven was named after his grandfather, because Lodewijk is the Dutch version of Ludwig. Beethoven’s grandfather was employed as a bass singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, who became Kapellmeister, also known as a music director. He had one son, which eventually became Beethoven’s father, Johann van Beethoven. He lived from the years 1740 to 1792. He was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German as a tenor in the same musical establishment, also giving lessons on piano and violin to supplement his income. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767; she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, who had been the head chef at the court of the Archbishopric of Trier.

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Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn; he was baptized in a Roman Catholic service on December 17, 1770. Children of that era were usually baptized the day after birth, and Beethoven’s family and his teacher, Johann Albrechtsberger, usually celebrated his birthday on 16 December. While this evidence supports the case for 16 December 1770 as Beethoven’s date of birth, we do not know it this is true because there is still no proof today of his actual birth. Of all the children born to Johann van Beethoven, only the second-born, Ludwig, and two younger brothers survived. Only three children out of seven survived and lived through infancy. Caspar Anton Carl was born on 8 April 1774, and Nikolaus Johann, the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776. With the Elector’s help, Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792. He was probably 1st introduced to Joseph Haydn in late 1790, when the latter was traveling to London and stopped in Bonn around Christmas time. They definitely met in Bonn on Haydn’s return trip from London to Vienna in July 1792, and it is likely that arrangements were made at that time for Beethoven to study with the old master. Beethoven composed a significant number of works. Even though none of his works were published at the time, but now many of them are considered his works even without being officially published to the public. He had a large range of styles that matured and became very classical. People have identified some themes similar to those of his third symphony in a set of variations written in 1791. Beethoven left Bonn for Vienna in November 1792, amid rumors of war spilling out of France, and learned shortly after his arrival that his father had died. Count Waldstein in his farewell note to Beethoven wrote: “Through uninterrupted diligence you will receive Mozart’s spirit through Haydn’s hands.” Beethoven responded to the widespread feeling that he was a successor to the recently deceased Mozart over

the next few years by studying that master’s work and writing works with a distinctly Mozartean flavor. In May of 1799, Beethoven gave piano lessons to the daughters of Hungarian Countess Anna Brunsvik. While this round of lessons lasted less than one month, Beethoven formed a relationship with the older daughter Josephine that has been the subject of much speculation ever since. Shortly after these lessons she married Count Josef Deym, and Beethoven was a regular visitor at their house, giving lessons and playing at parties. While her marriage was by all accounts unhappy, the couple had four children, and her relationship with Beethoven did not intensify until after Deym died in 1804. Beethoven was bedridden for most of his remaining months, and many friends came to visit. He died on 26 March 1827, during a thunderstorm. Beethoven composed many symphonies. Beethoven is an amazing composer. He made many different types of music and composed them death.

There are many things in common with Beethoven and Haydn. For an example, they both write music and existed in the same time. They both were the youngest out of the family. They both composed symphonies. They both write music and play them very well. They both are important in music, without them music might not exist to today. They are important musicians we all should remember. Beethoven and Hayden both had brothers and were not treated well during child hood, but they worked hard to become successful and survive through the hard times of their childhood. They both are well talented and are great musicians as well as, being capable of enduring hard times while still writing music for everyone to listen to. Their music is fantastic, and they are very similar. They studied music and literature. In fact, they studied music together once and Haydn was Beethoven’s teacher for music. Beethoven studied under Haydn for over a year before Haydn stopped teaching him. They wrote many symphonies for all the people to hear. Their music is very well written and amazing. When they died everyone was very sad and honored the great musicians because great musicians are very rare and hard to find. Their own style of music was in the same time period. They created what is music today, and they created the probably the greatest music of all time. Not the mention it influenced many other composers even after their death. Some of our greatest composers and musicians today are influenced by the two great composers Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven.

There are many differences between the two famous composers. Beethoven was the first composer that liked to rely on rhythm a lot more than melody. Many composers thought that the melody of a song was much more important than the rhythm. Haydn’s music relied greatly on melody. Beethoven was also the first composer to create the style of romanticism in music, and he liked to break the composition rules of music. This is what made Haydn stop teaching him. Haydn was the first composer to create the modern orchestra arrangement, which is the orchestra arrangement that that we have today. Haydn liked to create more classical music, but while Beethoven also liked classical music, he sometimes likes to lean towards romantic music. In fact, some people call Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony the beginning of the Romantic period in music. Early Beethoven sounds very classical while late Beethoven is completely different.

Beethoven also liked to add a lot of different dynamics into his music to make it more exciting. Haydn’s music had less dynamics which made it more soothing and emotional. Classical period is based on reason, thought, rules, order and such. There were carefully placed ornamentations not only in the music but in the art and architecture. The Romantic period is a reaction to it, emotional, full of adventure and color. The two different types of music are different yet they both are special. They have their similarities with sonata and symphony form being cemented in one and changed in the other, but it was still changed music. Classical music tended to conform to the “rules” of music: no strange chords, certain instruments got certain parts (harmony and such), where as romantic music was about toeing the line of those boundaries and incorporating unheard-of rhythms and chording. Haydn wrote many different types of music and at a rather very quick pace. He almost wrote a new music each week! Beethoven’s orchestra, however, was much larger in size than Haydn’s. Beethoven has created a new type of music. Haydn was popular in Vienna. He lived in Vienna during the years from 1814 to 1815. Money wise, the first two years in Vienna were very difficult for Beethoven. His first home was in a basement. He had to spend money for furniture, a piano, wood, clothes, in order to make a name for himself in the musical world. Even if his sense of style, as far as clothes went, was more than shabby, his talent and personality helped him improve his financial situation. Even if his sense of style, as far as clothes went, was more than shabby, his talent and personality helped him improve his financial situation.

Haydn’s most popular composition was The Creation-Oratorio while on the other hand; Beethoven’s most popular and famous composition was the well known 9th Symphony Choral with Ode to Joy by Schiller. The Ode to Joy soon became the EU’s National Anthem. They are both very well known and famous during that time, and it is still very famous today, especially the Ode to Joy (because it is the EU’s national anthem after all).

 

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