It's all about the classical music composers and their works from the last 400 years and much more about music. Hier erfahren Sie alles über die klassischen Komponisten und ihre Meisterwerke der letzten vierhundert Jahre und vieles mehr über Klassische Musik.
It’s easy to forget the great composers were ever children – can you imagine Brahms as a young boy, or Tchaikovsky as a toddler? But someone must have told them to eat their greens and dried their tears…
1. Beethoven's mother: Maria Magdalena Keverich
Maria Magdalena Keverich was from a well-to-do family of merchants, councillors and senators. After her first husband died, when Maria was just 18, she met Johann van Beethoven. The pair went on to marry and had three children who survived into adulthood – including the great composer, Ludwig van Beethoven.
2. Mahler's mother: Marie Herrmann Mahler
Marie Herrmann was the daughter of a rich merchant and soap boiler and she married Bernhard Mahler – a man described as having a fiery temper – in 1857. In total the couple had 14 children – one of which was the young Gustav, in 1860 – but eight died in childhood.
3. Liszt's mother: Anna Liszt
Liszt's mother, Maria Anna Liszt, worked as a chambermaid in her youth before marrying Adam Liszt. They only had one child – Franz Liszt. When Adam died, Liszt arranged for his mother to live with him in Paris, where he originally earned money teaching the piano.
4. Chopin's mother: Justyna Chopin
Chopin's mother was a gifted musician in her own right – she played the piano and had a good soprano voice. The young Frédéric Chopin was born in 1810.
5. Mozart's mother: Anna Maria Mozart
Anna Maria married Leopold Mozart in 1747. One historian has said of her: "It was a pure and healthy spirit that reigned in the Mozart household… and Anna Maria must take credit for this. Above all, she was a true mother to her children, who invariably sought refuge with her when their father's strict hand weighed unduly heavily upon them. Wolfgang loved and admired her to distraction." She died when travelling with her family in July 1778.
6. Tchaikovsky's mother: Alexandra Andreyevna
The young Pyotr Tchaikovsky is shown on the far left of this picture, with his mother Alexandra, his sister Alexandra, his brothers Zinaida, Nikolai and Ippolit and his father Ilya. She and Tchaikovsky's father were both trained in the arts, including music. When the young Pyotr had to leave home and his mother to go to boarding school, he was devastated – and the emotional scar of the separations stayed with him for the rest of his life.
7. Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn's mother: Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy was the mother of not one but two great composers – Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. It was largely thanks to her that her children were so musically talented. A brilliant pianist herself, Lea kicked-off Fanny and Felix's musical education. She was also an advocate for the music of JS Bach, at a time when the composer's music was rarely heard.
8. Britten's mother: Edith Rhoda Britten
Taken around 1914, this charming family portrait shows Benjamin Britten with his mother, Edith Rhoda, and siblings – Charlotte, Robert and Edith.
9. Percy Grainger's mother: Rose Grainger
Percy and Rose Grainger photographed in 1903 in Talma Studios, Sydney. Credit: Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne
Ludwig was still pumping out the masterpieces - even when he was completely deaf. Here's how he did it.
"For the last three years my hearing has grown steadily weaker..." - so wrote Beethoven, aged 30, in a letter to a friend.
The young Beethoven was known as the most important musician since Mozart. By his mid-20s, he had studied with Haydn and was celebrated as a brilliant, virtuoso pianist.
By the time he turned 30 he had composed a couple of piano concertos, six string quartets, and his first symphony. Everything was looking pretty good for the guy, with the prospect of a long, successful career ahead.
Then, he started to notice a buzzing sound in his ears - and everything was about to change.
How old was Beethoven when he started going deaf?
Around the age of 26, Beethoven began to hear buzzing and ringing in his ears. In 1800, aged 30, he wrote from Vienna to a childhood friend - by then working as a doctor in Bonn - saying that he had been suffering for some time:
"For the last three years my hearing has grown steadily weaker. I can give you some idea of this peculiar deafness when I must tell you that in the theatre I have to get very close to the orchestra to understand the performers, and that from a distance I do not hear the high notes of the instruments and the singers’ voices… Sometimes too I hardly hear people who speak softly. The sound I can hear it is true, but not the words. And yet if anyone shouts I can’t bear it."
Beethoven tried to keep news of the problem secret from those closest to him. He feared his career would be ruined if anyone realised.
"For two years I have avoided almost all social gatherings because it is impossible for me to say to people 'I am deaf'," he wrote. "If I belonged to any other profession it would be easier, but in my profession it is a frightful state."
Once Beethoven was out for a country ramble with fellow composer Ferdinand Ries, and while walking they saw a shepherd playing a pipe. Beethoven would have seen from Ries's face that there was beautiful music playing, but he couldn't hear it. It's said that Beethoven was never the same again after this incident, because he had confronted his deafness for the first time.
Beethoven could apparently still hear some speech and music until 1812. But by the age of 44, he was almost totally deaf and unable to hear voices or so many of the sounds of his beloved countryside. It must have been devastating for him.
Picture: Still from 'Das Leben des Beethoven' (1927)
Why did Beethoven go deaf?
The exact cause of his hearing loss is unknown. Theories range from syphilis to lead poisoning, typhus, or possibly even his habit of plunging his head into cold water to keep himself awake.
At one point he claimed he had suffered a fit of rage in 1798 when someone interrupted him at work. Having fallen over, he said, he got up to find himself deaf. At other times he blamed it on gastrointestinal problems.
"The cause of this must be the condition of my belly which as you know has always been wretched and has been getting worse," he wrote, "since I am always troubled with diarrhoea, which causes extraordinary weakness."
An autopsy carried out after he died found he had a distended inner ear, which developed lesions over time.
Here's Beethoven's famous Symphony No.5, written in 1804. Its famous opening motif is often referred to as 'fate knocking at the door'; the cruel hearing loss that he feared would afflict him for the rest of his life.
What treatment did Beethoven seek for his deafness?
Taking a lukewarm bath of Danube water seemed to help Beethoven's stomach ailments, but his deafness became worse. "I am feeling stronger and better, except that my ears sing and buzz constantly, day and night."
One bizarre remedy was strapping wet bark to his upper arms until it dried out and produced blisters. This didn't cure the deafness—it only served to keep him away from his piano for two weeks.
After 1822, he gave up seeking treatment for his hearing. He tried a range of hearing aids, such as special hearing trumpets. Take a look:
If he couldn't hear, how did he write music?
Beethoven had heard and played music for the first three decades of his life, so he knew how instruments and voices sounded and how they worked together. His deafness was a slow deterioration, rather than a sudden loss of hearing, so he could always imagine in his mind what his compositions would sound like.
Beethoven's housekeepers remembered that, as his hearing got worse, he would sit at the piano, put a pencil in his mouth, touching the other end of it to the soundboard of the instrument, to feel the vibration of the note.
Did Beethoven's deafness change his music?
Yes. In his early works, when Beethoven could hear the full range of frequencies, he made use of higher notes in his compositions. As his hearing failed, he began to use the lower notes that he could hear more clearly. Works including the Moonlight Sonata, his only opera Fidelio and six symphonies were written during this period. The high notes returned to his compositions towards the end of his life which suggests he was hearing the works take shape in his imagination.
Here's Beethoven's Große Fuge, Op. 133, written by the deaf Beethoven in 1826, formed entirely of those sounds of his imagination.
Did Beethoven continue to perform?
He did. But he ended up wrecking pianos by banging on them so hard in order to hear the notes.
After watching Beethoven in a rehearsal in 1814 for the Archduke Trio, the composer Louis Spohr said: "In fortepassages the poor deaf man pounded on the keys until the strings jangled, and in piano he played so softly that whole groups of notes were omitted, so that the music was unintelligible unless one could look into the pianoforte part. I was deeply saddened at so hard a fate."
When it came to the premiere of his massive Ninth Symphony, Beethoven insisted on conducting. The orchestra hired another conductor, Michael Umlauf to stand alongside the composer. Umlauf told the performers to follow him and ignore Beethoven's directions.
The symphony received rapturous applause which Beethoven could not hear. Legend has it that the young contralto Carolina Unger approached the maestro and turned him around to face the audience, to see the ovation.
This is how the moment might have looked, with Gary Oldman playing Beethoven in the film, Immortal Beloved:
BY WHATSHAPPENING Published · Tuesday, October 16, 2018 09:30 AM
ThThe ground-breaking and iconic band Queen have defied the odds, remaining vanguards of music and pop culture over the decades. In the trendiest clubs around the world, DJs frequently play Queen hits, along with music from many contemporary artists whom Queen inspired. Meanwhile, until today, in football stadiums round the globe, fans stomp-stomp-clap in unison, and chant Queen's anthemic 'We Will Rock You'. Queen's brand of music and beat is irresistible, the style, timeless. Transcending generations, unlike many 70s and 80s groups that came and went, Queen remains as relevant today as they were then.
Gwilym Lee, Rami Malek, Ben Hardy in BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
Directed by Bryan Singer, "Bohemian Rhapsody" stars Rami Malek in an uncanny performance as Freddie Mercury, charting Queen's extraordinary story, from the band's roots as bright London college students, to the dazzling heights of international stardom, when they filled stadiums across the world at record-breaking concerts, including the legendary 1985 performance at Live Aid, which was watched by a global audience of 1.9 billion and raised money for the famine in Ethiopia. As the story unfolds, it becomes crystal clear why the band had such lasting appeal. The film also stars Gwilym Lee who plays Queen's lead guitarist Brian May, Ben Hardy as drummer Roger Taylor, and Joe Mazzello as bass guitarist John Deacon, as well as Mike Myers and Tom Hollander.
More than 20 years after Freddie's death, the band and their songs remain hugely popular until today, "Bohemian Rhapsody" now takes the audience on how four talented musicians, 3 academics and an art student, came together to form 20th century's greatest band of all time who broke boundaries in the music industry.
Queen band (actors) Ben Hardy, Gwilym Lee, Joe Mazzello, Rami Malek in BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
Real life Queen lead guitarist Brian May and drummer guided the filmmakers throughout and Jim Beach (Queen's lawyer-turned-manager) produces with award-winning Graham King. Certainly the cast made a lasting impression on Brian May. "When I first walked on the set and saw Gwilym Lee in his costume and wig, it was almost like looking in the mirror!" says the musician. "He did a very good job of being me! And Rami Malek is so convincing as Freddie, down to the body language. And Joe Mazzello as Deacy is uncanny. John wasn't a very outgoing personality, but he had a very distinct way of performing, and Joe got it down, just as Ben Hardy completely absorbed Roger Taylor's spirit in his performance."
Tasked with creating the look of the film was production designer Aaron Haye, and call it serendipity, his team team included two members of the construction team that built the real stage for Live Aid in 1985. Freddie Mercury's personal assistant Peter Freestone, who was with him for 12 years until his death, was an advisor on the film, and his personal knowledge was invaluable.
Joe Mazzello, Ben Hardy, Rami Malek, Gwilym Lee as members of Queen band in BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
"As soon as we arrived, we felt the excitement," recalls Freestone of that epic day in July 1985. "There was a good atmosphere. It was really friendly, and there was no competition, which quite often can happen when you have this sort of lineup. Queen took to the stage, and the audience went wild right from the start of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. And the atmosphere backstage changed; it became electric. Something had happened. Eighteen minutes later, the band came off stage and they'd nailed it. The audience was going wild, and backstage people were applauding."
Queen's Brian May, producer Graham King, actor Gwilym Lee - BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
All that hard work paid dividends. "It was amazing," says May. "The moment I walked onto that stage, it was surreal because it perfectly replicated what the stage was like in 1985 - every last detail down to the amps behind me, pedals and even the cloth and back stage with the cigarette butts and the ashtrays and the coke bottles. What a wonderful job they did!"
Peter Freestone was taken aback by the set's authenticity. "It was a déjà vu moment," he says. "The first time I saw the set I just couldn't believe it. It's exactly the same size. Everything was right, from the stage to backstage even to the peeling paint off the walls and the rust coming down from water pipes. It got the goose bumps going."
Get ready to step in the most jaw-dropping nostalgic walk down memory lane as 20th Century Fox releases "Bohemian Rhapsody" in Philippine cinemas on October 31.
Follow @20thcenturyfoxphilippines on Facebook and Instagram for more of the latest news and updates on "Bohemian Rhapsody".
From augmented chords to a random incredible theremin part, these pop songs all give a very pleasing nod to the classical world.
These are undoubtedly the best pop songs of all time (if you’re a classical musician).
Toxic – Britney
Aside from Britney’s iconic vocals, what makes ‘Toxic’ so great is that jarring tritone in the refrain. It’s an unexpected moment of dissonance, and it’s all the more awesome coming from Britney.
Good Vibrations – The Beach Boys
It’s impossible to count the number of tempo changes, key changes and bizarre instruments The Beach Boys used to create their biggest pop hit. From a chorus with one of the greatest modulations in music history to an unexpected appearance from a theremin, ‘Good Vibrations’ is the model of an incredible pop song.
I Want You Back – The Jackson 5
Weirdly, the bassline of ‘I Want You Back’ is nearly as important as its melody. It starts with a thrilling glissando on keys, followed by a battle between the bassline and rhythm guitar line. Then, a third, completely independent line – the main melody – is added over the top, creating ACTUAL THREE-PART COUNTERPOINT. It gets better and better the more you listen to it.
Eleanor Rigby – The Beatles
A killer pop song with… a killer cello part. How often can you say that? ‘Eleanor Rigby’ is just one example of McCartney’s creative genius. Both the lyrics and harmony of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ are eerily melancholic – and that’s largely down to those eerie marcato strings.
Tonally, ‘Lovefool’ never quite makes up its mind. It starts in A minor and occasionally switches into the major, before properly landing in A major for the chorus. But then, the chorus repeats and just when it seems like it’s going to finish in a major key, we’re back to A minor and into the next verse. It’s a tonal tug-of-war, and it’s just brilliant.
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant – Billy Joel
A bottle of white, a bottle of red… the intro of ‘Scenes from an Italian restaurant’ is constantly undercut with those beautiful descending piano phrases. But then, we’re hit with a dramatic tempo change (at 3.36): the octave-jumping semiquavers come in, leading into one of the catchiest solo jazz piano sections in the pop-rock history. It’s the best.
Bad Romance – Lady Gaga
Gaga outed herself as a true music geek when she opened the music video to her 2009 hit with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fugue in B minor from The Well Tempered Clavier. We always knew she seemed like someone who’d enjoy a bit of Baroque counterpoint action.
Breakfast in America – Supertramp
From a squealing soprano saxophone to a parpy, rhythmic trombone-tuba duet undercutting Roger Hodgson’s vocals, Supertramp are big fans of the brass section. They also use a pleasing harpsichord-esque setting on their keyboard in the opening two bars. We like.
Life in a Northern Town – Dream Academy
‘Life in a Northern Town’, most famous for its chorus, is a song brimming with nostalgia, something that's mainly achieved, somewhat unexpectedly, with the wistful sound of an oboe. The instrumentation is dominated by acoustic guitar and various keyboards, but the oboe cuts through beautifully.
She’s Like a Rainbow – Rolling Stones
The instrumental passages in ‘She’s like a Rainbow’ might now have been used in about fifteen various car and perfume adverts, but they are still brilliantly original. The opening keyboard refrain, along with the descending strings, sound just like a tinkling music box.
Just the Way You Are – Billy Joel
Otherwise known as the ‘demo’ setting on everyone’s childhood keyboard, ‘Just the Way You Are’ opens with a beautifully soothing electric piano solo – but it’s the saxophone solo, expertly performed by Phil Woods, that really takes the biscuit. Have a listen from 3:00.
Without You – Harry Nilsson / Mariah Carey
Paul McCartney called it “the killer song of all time” – and its power comes from a bunch of really simple, but really emotive piano chords. The way Nilsson uses the opening chords to build up to the climax of the chorus, only to bring us straight back down again, is just agonising.
Single Ladies – Beyoncé
It might not be one of Beyoncé’s more melodic creations, but there are some really interesting bits of music theory going on here. The ‘E’ which runs throughout the song acts as a drone under Bey’s main pentatonic melodies, giving the song a modal feel. But then, she throws in some unexpected chords in the form of siren noises over the top. Why? Because she’s Beyoncé and she can.
Music in schools is at risk of disappearing. Picture: Getty
By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London
15K
According to research by the University of Sussex, the number of secondary schools offering music as a curriculum subject is in serious decline.
Music as a timetabled subject is at significant risk of disappearing in schools, according to a survey by the University of Sussex.
The research found an increasing number of secondary schools had reduced or completely removed music from the curriculum for secondary school students in years seven to nine.
Some schools are now no longer offering music as a curriculum subject, with others only offering it on an ‘enrichment day’ once a year.
Duncan Mackrill, Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Sussex, said: “Music’s place in the secondary curriculum continues to be precariously balanced or disappearing in a significant number of schools.
“Without a change to require a balanced curriculum in all schools we are in danger of music education becoming in many cases the preserve of those who can pay.”
Some schools only offer music on an ‘enrichment day’ once a year. Picture: Getty
Of the 464 schools in England which responded to the survey, 70 per cent reported music teachers often teaching outside their subject area, to ‘fill gaps’ in ‘core subjects’.
The research found the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), a set of core subjects used to measure schools’ performance, is having a particularly negative impact on the provision and uptake of music in schools.
Performance measures and a squeeze on funding were also reported as having a negative effect.
According to the survey, some schools have discouraged top-set students from taking music at GCSE, because of the EBacc. In others, lower ability students are prevented from taking music so they can concentrate on core subjects.
Deborah Annetts, Chief Executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, said: “Music is central to our cultural life, a key driver of economic growth, and gives our children the tools to navigate a fast changing digital world.
“We urge the Government to reverse its EBacc policy altogether to keep music in our schools.”
