Composer and and pianist Ludwig Van Beethoven, widely considered the greatest composer of all time, was born on or about December 16, 1770 in the city of Bonn in the Electorate of Cologne, a principality of the Holy Roman Empire. Although his exact date of birth is uncertain, Beethoven was baptized on December 17, 1770.
Since as a matter of law and custom, babies were baptized within 24 hours of birth, December 16 is his most likely birth date. However, Beethoven himself mistakenly believed that he was born two years later, in 1772, and he stubbornly insisted on the incorrect date even when presented with official papers that proved beyond any reasonable doubt that 1770 was his true birth year.
Beethoven had two younger brothers who survived into adulthood, Caspar, born in 1774, and Johann, born in 1776. Beethoven’s mother, Maria Magdalena van Beethoven, was a slender, genteel, and deeply moralistic woman. His father, Johann van Beethoven, was a mediocre court singer better known for his alcoholism than any musical ability. However, Beethoven’s grandfather, godfather and namesake, Kapellmeister Ludwig van Beethoven, was Bonn’s most prosperous and eminent musician, a source of endless pride for young Ludwig.
Sometime between the births of his two younger brothers, Beethoven’s father began teaching him music with an extraordinary rigor and brutality that affected him for the rest of his life. Neighbors provided accounts of the small boy weeping while he played the clavier, standing atop a footstool to reach the keys, his father beating him for each hesitation or mistake.
On a near daily basis, Beethoven was flogged, locked in the cellar and deprived of sleep for extra hours of practice. He studied the violin and clavier with his father as well as taking additional lessons from organists around town. Whether in spite of or because of his father’s draconian methods, Beethoven was a prodigiously talented musician from his earliest days and displayed flashes of the creative imagination that would eventually reach farther than any composer’s before or since.
Hoping that his young son would be recognized as a musical prodigy à la Mozart, Beethoven’s father arranged his first public recital for March 26, 1778. Billed as a “little son of six years,” (Mozart’s age when he debuted for Empress Maria Theresia) although he was in fact seven, Beethoven played impressively but his recital received no press whatsoever. Meanwhile, the musical prodigy attended a Latin grade school named Tirocinium, where a classmate said, “Not a sign was to be discovered& of that spark of genius which glowed so brilliantly in him afterwards.”
To read more information on Beethoven, please go to http://www.biography.com/people/ludwig-van-beethoven-9204862
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor. OP. 37.
The Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1800 and was first performed on 5 April 1803, with the composer as soloist. The year for which the concerto was composed (1800) has however been questioned by contemporary musicologists. It was published in 1804. During that same performance, the Second Symphony and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives were also premiered. The composition was dedicated to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia. The first primary theme is reminiscent of that of Mozart’s 24th Piano Concerto.
For more information on Piano concerto NO. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, please go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No._3_%28Beethoven%29
Rudolf Serkin – Pianist:
Rudolf Serkin (28 March 1903 – 8 May 1991) was a Bohemian-born pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Beethoven interpreters of the twentieth century.
For more information on Rudolf Serkin, please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Serkin
Seiji Osawa – Conductor.
Ozawa was born on September 1, 1935 to Japanese parents in the city of Mukden, Manchukuo (now Shenyang, China). When his family returned to Japan in 1944, he began studying piano with Noboru Toyomasu, heavily studying the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. After graduating from the Seijo Junior High School in 1950, Ozawa sprained his finger in a rugby game. Unable to continue studying the piano, his teacher at the Toho Gakuen School of Music (Hideo Saito), brought Ozawa to a life-changing performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, which ultimately shifted his musical focus from piano performance to conducting.
For more information on Seiji Ozawa, please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiji_Ozawa
For information on Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, please go to http://www.bso.org/n-s/seiji-ozawa.aspx