Beethoven - "The Greatest Composer Who Ever Lived"

Bernstein talks about Beethoven's life and performs bits of Beethoven's exhilarating Piano Concerto No. 1.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• leonard
• bernstein
• beethoven
• vienna
• documentary
• portrait
• anniversary
• 200
• composer
• classical
• music
• romantic

[einsteinlisztbach]

Yes and no. Beethoven composed music that was ahead of it's time. Now we find the music of Beethoven very beautiful. But not then. Bach was a genius in his own style. The other composers after Beethoven were very inspired by Beethoven, all of them. So... Beethoven created a whole new way of music; Romantic (9th Symphony), Rock (5th Symphony) and Jazz (Grosse Fuge). Not in terms of instrumentation, but in how it was written. And that makes Beethoven so special than the other composers.

[thegoddescomposer]

bach and beethoven 2 big gift of god for the whole world

[classicalfan777]

Beethoven was the 3rd greatest composer that ever lived. Thanks.

Oh, 1 Mozart, and 2 Bach. Thanks, bye.

[darkruler528]

MOZART FTW

then Beethoven

(srry i love both but i like more of mozarts song. Beethovens turkish march was a vain attempt to beat the original)

[mozaaar]

I have always reckoned myself among the greatest admirers of Mozart, and shall do so till the day of my death.

Ludwig van Beethoven ..... Says enough my friends, Beethoven learned from the master

[obtica1]

Beethoven's 9th, Complete...

youtube.com/watch?v=EmV35VPRT9­s

[ToneSpectra]

@sstuddert Personally, I think this is a problem with music that came after Beethoven: music that is ABOUT something, something else other than music. I prefer music that is just about music, about exploring new sound worlds, not about Romeo & Juliet, or some Earthly struggle, or politics. That's why I have a problem with opera; the structure is governed too much by story, and story has nothing to do with the art of music. I have the same problem with music that exists just to 'decorate' lyrics

[ToneSpectra]

It's not really right to call any one composer 'the greatest', for just as Picasso couldn't do everything Rembrandt did, Beethoven couldn't do everything Bach or Mozart did. Mozart spent years studying Bach, which one HAS to go through to do what he did, and so both Bach and Mozart would have been better at writing cannons and fugues than Beethoven who studied it to a lesser extent. Also Mozart died too young and his late works showed that Beethoven would have had some tough competition indeed!

[dalecampbl9]

if Beethoven were alive today, he can make millions writing 1000s of pop tunes for various fake singers to lip synch to.

[sstuddert]

@jeunehomme9 to suggest that Mozart's use of dissonance was in anyway more radical than Beethoven's is absolutely ridiculous. The late quartets, symphonies, sonatas, variations and the Missa solemnis are harmonicly, thamtically and structurally, far more advanced than anything Mozart had ever written. Your argument that Mozart's use of "dissonance" was more frequent is tantamount to the fallacious argument of Mozart's superiority due to the quantity of work he produced rather than quality.