Happy Birthday, Beethoven!

Today marks the 240th birthday of composer Ludwig van Beethoven.

Happy 240th Birthday, Ludwig!

Beethoven is crucial to the importance of the development of Western music. His body of work stands at the crossroads between the 18th century and the 19th, between the codification of "classical" style and the Romantic period that followed.

The music of Beethoven is rooted in formal structures: sonata forms, dance movements, and rondos. But throughout the three periods of his career, those structures were used in new ways, to express power and emotion.

Beethoven established himself early as an uncompromising, virtuoso pianist. He was one of the first composers to freelance, establishing himself as an equal to the noble class and paving the way for how composers did business in the 19th century.  His early concertos and symphonies became popular with Vienna audiences, who took the German-born composer for one of their own.
But it was his Third Symphony, the Eroica, that broke fresh ground, revising and expanding the symphony in terms of size, shape and form.

The Eroica marks the beginning of Beethoven's fertile 'middle' period, which includes works like the Fifth Symphony, the 'Razumovsky' Quartets and his lone opera, Fidelio. The premiere of the 'Eroica' also coincides with the "Heilingstadt Testament", a letter written to the composer's brothers where he confessed his growing deafness and resolved to carry on creating music.


The last years of Beethoven's life were spent in silence, as his hearing had completely failed. But this period led to some of his most experimental work, pushing the boundaries of music into new directions. The final piano sonatas (including the Hammerklavier) date from this period. So does the massive Missa Solemnis, and the final string quartets, which include the difficult Grosse Fugue.

It was his final symphony, the Ninth, that would summate his career. The Ninth was longer than any other symphony written before it, with expanded movements that stormed the heavens and reflected on cosmic truths. In the final movement, Beethoven added the voice to the orchestra in a whol new way, using four vocal soloists and a massive choir to create the triumphant shout of the 'Ode to Joy.' The Ninth is more than just a symphony: it is the closest thing music lovers have to a national anthem.

Happy 150th Birthday, Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler.

Today is Gustav Mahler's 150th birthday.

In his lifetime, Mahler was one of the most prominent conductors in the world. He worked with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna State Opera and the New York Philharmonic. He also composed nine symphonies, several major works for orchestra and voice, and a Tenth symphony that exists in various "completed" versions.

Mahler's symphonies fall into several groups. Nos. 1-4 are all based (to one degree or another) on a song cycle, Der Knaben Wunderhorn. The First, ("Titan")has a conventional four-movement structure, but that's only because Mahler cut one of the original movements. The Second ("Resurrection") adds a chorus to depict the dead rising from their graves. But that's nothing on the Third: where Mahler attempts to capture the totality of nature and God in six movements, lasting 100 minutes. Mahler was nothing if not ambitious.


Nos. 5-7 are all instrumental. The Fifth is a huge, heaven-storming work. The Sixth ("Tragic") shows a hero marching to his doom, felled by the giant blows of a hammer. And the Seventh is a powerful five-movement work that contrasts the mysteries of night with the raw light of day in its final movement.

Mahler finished out his composing career with several monumental works. The Eighth ("Symphony of a Thousand") is two movements and requires a full orchestra, three choruses and vocal soloists. It is a large-scale setting of a medieval hymn ("Veni, creator spiritus") and the final scene of Part II of Goethe's Faust. The title comes from the promoter, who claimed that a thousand performers were required to perform the Eighth.

Having stormed the heavens, Mahler turned inward for his final works. Das Lied von der Erde ("The Song of the Earth") is a setting of Chinese poems for two soloists and orchestra. A symphony in all but name, since Mahler wanted to avoid the "curse of the Ninth" that had prevented other composers (Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak) from writing more than nine symphonies. Faced with health problems (including an irregular heartbeat) he wrote his Ninth proper, which is based around a faltering rhythm that is a transcription of his own failing heart. He died while working on the Tenth.

Mahler died at the age of 50, having finished his career in New York, running both the New York Philharmonic and the Met. He said of his music that his time would come. With its turbulent emotions, grinning, wry humor and cries from the heart, the symphonies of Mahler are a soundtrack of the the last century, and remain as relevant today as they were when he was alive.