Beethoven & Tchaikovsky: Musical Geniuses of Their Time and Ours
When performing a song, how do you make it yours? Do you sing it faster than is written, add extra harmonies or play an instrument with you? The way you perform a song is unique to your style. The same concept applies to composing a song- and is exemplified by Ludwig von Beethoven and Pyotr Il'ich Tchaikovsky. Beethoven’s parents were extremely persistent on getting Beethoven to be a Mozart-esque child prodigy when he was young (c. late 1700’s in Bonn, Germany) (Wacker). Tchaikovsky, in contrast, grew up in Imperial Russia in the mid-1800s. His family pushed him to go into civil service, but at the age of 21, he changed his mind and decided to pursue music as a career (“Pyotr”). …show more content…
Beethoven reflects his life in his piece “Fur Elise,” including a climax that aligns with the turning point in his own life: about two-thirds of the way through, there’s a dramatic change (“Beethoven - Fur Elise”). During this time, Beethoven’s life began to go awry, with him becoming deaf and losing family members, but as his life hit his turning point, he had to choose to become stronger or not (Neenan). After this point in his life, he turned to music to be his constant, and relied heavily on it, creating music even through his deafness. However, even through Beethoven’s personal life had an influence on what his music was like but he made it relatable to everyone by using interesting sounds and devices to create interesting music. By reflecting his music on his personal life, there was not a great amount of room for connection to the feelings of the time period is well, which is done by Tchaikovsky. One such feeling is complexity, which is represented in his piece, “Symphonie Pathetique.” “[Symphonie Pathetique] vibrates with strange melodies and ingenious technical tricks... There is such depth of feeling in this piece that makes an angel out of the meanest person, even if it is only for a moment,” (Gronowicz 153). However, he also presents other themes that relate more directly to his life, his country and his current time period. Tchaikovsky used lots of loud and large sounds in his second symphony, “Little Russian,” to exemplify the disasters happening in Russia at the time or to show off the power and pride of being Russian (Tchaikovsky, “‘Little’”). He was able to capture Russia’s current turmoil in his symphony, which allowed people, especially
When performing a song, how do you make it yours? Do you sing it faster than is written, add extra harmonies or play an instrument with you? The way you perform a song is unique to your style. The same concept applies to composing a song- and is exemplified by Ludwig von Beethoven and Pyotr Il'ich Tchaikovsky. Beethoven’s parents were extremely persistent on getting Beethoven to be a Mozart-esque child prodigy when he was young (c. late 1700’s in Bonn, Germany) (Wacker). Tchaikovsky, in contrast, grew up in Imperial Russia in the mid-1800s. His family pushed him to go into civil service, but at the age of 21, he changed his mind and decided to pursue music as a career (“Pyotr”). …show more content…
Beethoven reflects his life in his piece “Fur Elise,” including a climax that aligns with the turning point in his own life: about two-thirds of the way through, there’s a dramatic change (“Beethoven - Fur Elise”). During this time, Beethoven’s life began to go awry, with him becoming deaf and losing family members, but as his life hit his turning point, he had to choose to become stronger or not (Neenan). After this point in his life, he turned to music to be his constant, and relied heavily on it, creating music even through his deafness. However, even through Beethoven’s personal life had an influence on what his music was like but he made it relatable to everyone by using interesting sounds and devices to create interesting music. By reflecting his music on his personal life, there was not a great amount of room for connection to the feelings of the time period is well, which is done by Tchaikovsky. One such feeling is complexity, which is represented in his piece, “Symphonie Pathetique.” “[Symphonie Pathetique] vibrates with strange melodies and ingenious technical tricks... There is such depth of feeling in this piece that makes an angel out of the meanest person, even if it is only for a moment,” (Gronowicz 153). However, he also presents other themes that relate more directly to his life, his country and his current time period. Tchaikovsky used lots of loud and large sounds in his second symphony, “Little Russian,” to exemplify the disasters happening in Russia at the time or to show off the power and pride of being Russian (Tchaikovsky, “‘Little’”). He was able to capture Russia’s current turmoil in his symphony, which allowed people, especially