Ludwig van Beethoven (Baptised 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the classical and romantic eras in classical music, he remains one of the most recognized and influential musicians of this period, and is considered to be one of the greatest composers of all time. There is no authentic record of the date of his birth; however, it is known that Beethoven’s family and his teacher Johann Albrechtsberger celebrated his birthday on 16 December, most scholars accept 16 December 1770 as his date of birth.
Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age; initially taught by his father Johann van Beethoven he began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe, some time after 1779. Neefe taught him composition, and by March 1783 had helped him write his first published composition: a set of keyboard variations. His first three piano sonatas, named “Kurfürst” (“Elector”) for their dedication to the Elector Maximilian Friedrich, were published in 1783. The Elector noticed his talent early, and subsidised Beethoven’s musical studies. At age 21 he moved to Vienna and studied composition with Joseph Haydn. Beethoven gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist, and was soon sought out by Prince Lichnowsky for compositions, which resulted in Opus 1 in 1795.
Around the turn of the century Beethoven’s hearing began to deteriorate, but he continued to conduct, premiering his third and fifth symphonies in 1804 and 1808, respectively. His condition worsened to almost complete deafness by 1811, and he then gave up performing and appearing in public.
Mass in C major: Beethoven had studied counterpoint in Vienna with Johann Georg Albrechtsberger He received a commission from Prince Nikolaus Esterházy II in 1807, extending a tradition established by Joseph Haydn, of each year composing a mass in celebration of the Princess’ birthday. Beethoven was fully aware of the tradition that Haydn had established and it influenced him strongly in writing the Mass in C major. Beethoven confessed in a letter to the prince: “may I just say that I will hand the mass over to you with great trepidation, as Your Serene Highness is accustomed to having the inimitable masterworks of the great Haydn performed.”
Beethoven’s mass was premiered on 13 September 1807 in Eisenstadt, the ancestral seat of the Esterházys. The first performance was under rehearsed; the musicologist Stoltzfus described the dress rehearsal as “unsatisfactory”. The premiere was not well received, particularly by the man who commissioned it, Prince Esterházy. Musicologist Lewis Lockwood narrated the episode, reporting an anecdote:
According to the story, the prince, after hearing the work—and probably noticing its stark difference from the styles of Mass composition he revered in Haydn—said to Beethoven, “But, my dear Beethoven, what is that you have done again?” Whereupon the court chapel master was heard to laugh—this being none other than Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the composer and pianist who had himself written masses for the Esterházy court, including one in the same key, C major, just the previous year. Reacting angrily to the prince’s question and furious over Hummel’s pompous laughter as well as the inferior guest quarters he had been given in Eisenstadt, Beethoven left in a huff.
Prince Esterházy’s reaction was perhaps based on a common human reaction to something new and unknown –
as Samuel Butler said: The only things we really hate are unfamiliar things.
Beethoven offered the mass, after revising the composition, to the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel, together with the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Originally, the mass had been dedicated to Prince Esterházy; this dedication appears on the manuscript score used at the premiere. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the outcome of the first performance and the Prince’s reaction, Beethoven dedicated the published version (1812) to another person, Prince Kinsky.
Anton Bruckner (born Sept. 4, 1824, Ansfelden, Austria—died Oct. 11, 1896, Vienna) was an Austrian composer of a number of highly original and monumental symphonies. He was also an organist and teacher who composed much sacred and secular choral music. He was the son of a village schoolmaster and organist and showed talent on the violin and spinet by the age of four, and by age 10 he was deputizing at the church organ. In 1835–36 he studied in Hörsching with his godfather, J.B. Weiss, a minor composer. After his father’s death in 1837, Bruckner entered the monastery-school of St. Florian as a choir boy. This splendid Baroque foundation, with its magnificent organ, was to remain Bruckner’s spiritual home. He trained in Linz as an assistant schoolteacher in 1840–41, and after holding appointments in Windhaag and Kronstorf, he returned to St. Florian as a fully qualified elementary teacher in 1845.
Bruckner taught at St. Florian for about a decade, and in 1848 he became the principal organist of its abbey church. In the meantime, his compositional skills steadily advanced. Though Bruckner eventually grew unhappy with his limited prospects at the cloistered St. Florian monastery, he was hesitant to leave its security for a purely musical career. In 1856 he was reluctantly persuaded by his friends to apply for the post of cathedral organist at Linz, which he won easily. At the same time, he began a five-year correspondence course in advanced harmony and counterpoint with the Viennese teacher Simon Sechter.
Throughout his adult life Bruckner displayed an intense devotion to the spiritual life; an inexorable appetite for musical study, revision, and improvement; and a love of practice and improvisation at the organ. The story of his life is one of studying, teaching, and composing. He has composed both grand scale masses and symphonies as well as chamber music. Although his intellectual powers cannot be doubted in the light of his achievement, he remained inwardly insecure and constantly sought to pass some new musical examination or diploma in order to reassure himself that he was every bit as capable as his more intellectually endowed and sophisticated contemporaries. The strain caused by the hours of constant study required to facilitate his composing, in addition to his professional responsibilities, caused an acute nervous collapse in early 1867, from which he recovered after three months in a sanatorium, though intense depressions would later trouble him. His private life had also taken on an unhappy pattern of passionate but unrequited attachments to younger, usually teenage, girls. With his provincial background and devout nature, he cut an odd figure among the sophisticated Romantic composers who were his contemporaries. He never lost his simplicity of character, his rural accent and dress, his social naivete, or his unquestioning deference to authority.
By the early 1890s Bruckner had become a famous and honoured figure, and he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Vienna in 1891.
Bruckner died in Vienna 1896 and was buried at St.
Te Deum: Bruckner worked on and off on his Te Deum from May 1881 until March 1884 while also working on his symphonies no 6 and 7. He dedicated the piece A.M.D.G. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam or “for the greater glory of God “in gratitude for having safely brought me through so much anguish in Vienna.”
The Te Deum was premiered in the Kleiner Musikvereinssaal in Vienna on 2 May 1885, with soloists and the choir of the Wiener Akademischer Richard Wagner Verein, and Robert Erben and Joseph Schalk substituting for the orchestra on two pianos. Hans Richter conducted the first performance with full orchestra on 10 January 1886 in the Großer Musikvereinssaal in Vienna.
Thereafter, there were almost thirty more performances within Bruckner’s lifetime. The last performance, which Bruckner attended, was conducted by Richard von Perger at the suggestion of Johannes Brahms. On his copy of the score, Gustav Mahler crossed out “für Chor, Soli und Orchester, Orgel ad libitum” (for choir, solos and orchestra, organ ad libitum) and wrote “für Engelzungen, Gottsucher, gequälte Herzen und im Feuer gereinigte Seelen!” (for the tongues of angels, seekers of God, chastened hearts, and souls purified in the fire!). The composer himself called the work “the pride of his life”.
Click on this link to hear the Mass in C major
Beethoven – Mass in C major, Op. 86 (youtube.com)
BUT REMEMBER – MUSIC IS BEST IN LIVE PERFORMANCE
Conducted by Richard Cock.