On March 26th, 1827 Ludwig Van Beethoven died in Vienna. The day after, a twelve year old boy took a lock of his hair as a souvenir. 167 years later the hair was sold at an auction in London. Its new owners were two Americans, Ira Brilliant and Che Guevera. Between those dates the lock of hair undertook an extraordinary historical odyssey. From hand to hand, from country to country, and from century to century.
This is the story of that journey.
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posted by 23
on May 18, 2013 -
15 comments
On the November 11, 1954 edition of the US educational program
Omnibus, Leonard Bernstein presented what amounted to a
30-minute master class on one of the most familiar of all classical works, the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, to include reinserting some unused sketches. The results are, to put it mildly, interesting.
posted by pjern
on Mar 1, 2013 -
18 comments
Beethoven's Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 9 in A, Op. 47 (
audio) was
originally dedicated to the black violin virtuoso
George Bridgetower after he gave such a brilliant rendering of the piece that prompted Beethoven to jump from his seat and embrace him. Bridgetower was a musical child prodigy and composer who, despite rampant racial prejudice, reached "unusual heights in the music world of his day". Having lived and performed in major European cities such as London, Paris, and Vienna, he would later die forgotten and in poverty.
A personal disagreement with Bridgetower led Beethoven to dedicate the sonata to the famous violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer instead who, incidentally, never played it in public deeming it “outrageously unintelligible”.
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posted by lucia__is__dada
on Mar 27, 2009 -
10 comments
Music is nothing.
Sound could become music.
The end must be in the beginning,
and the beginning in the end.
I am here because I am not here.
Music lives in the eternal now.
Music is the now becoming now.
What I learned from
Sergiu Celibidache, by
Markand Thakar. More inside.
posted by matteo
on Oct 14, 2005 -
6 comments
"I haven't been in a concert hall in 4 billion years". Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, 54, had been excited about an invitation to see the
Los Angeles Philharmonic in action at
Disney Hall. "The anticipation is horrible". He'd started showering daily at a shelter, to gussy himself up as much as possible. Nathaniel was a music student more than 30 years ago at the
Juilliard School when he suffered a breakdown. Today, as he continues to battle the schizophrenia that landed him on skid row, he plays violin and cello for hours each day in downtown Los Angeles, lifting his instruments out of an orange shopping cart on which he has written: "Little Walt Disney Concert Hall — Beethoven." After the Philharmonic's rehearsal, Ayers has played Disney Hall -- the real one, this time. Without the bow at first, picking the strings with his right hand, Bach's Cello Suite No. 1: Prelude. Several Philharmonic staffers heard the music and wandered over, peering in to see a man of the streets, tattered and elegant, close his eyes and drift into ecstasy.
posted by PenguinBukkake
on Oct 9, 2005 -
14 comments
Classic FM Radio Analysis scans play lists from various FM radio stations and allows you to make queries such as how often was Beethoven's Symphony #9 played, what are the most popular pieces played, who are the most popular composers, etc.
posted by RonZ
on Aug 4, 2005 -
4 comments
The Unheard Beethoven -
This website endeavors to make all of Beethoven's unrecorded music readily accessible to the public. These never-before-heard works are now available to anyone with a computer, a modem and a soundcard, in the form of MIDI files. At present, over twelve hours of Beethoven's music is available on this website and in no other listenable format.
posted by Wolfdog
on Jul 11, 2005 -
16 comments
9 Beet Stretch - What if you took Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which normally runs about 70 minutes (this is, incidentally, the reason CDs are the length they are), and stretched it out to
24 hours using digital audio processing? The pitch remains intact; only the length is changed. What you end up with can only be called majestic and ethereal, kind of an orchestral version of loveliescrushing. For your convenience, you can listen to the work in one-hour, twenty-minute RealAudio chunks. Hm, I wonder what other music might work well with such radical time-expansion...
(via interconnected)
posted by kindall
on Jul 27, 2002 -
43 comments
