Question

THIS IS A MUSIC QUESTION

What were other composers doing at the time compared to Beethoven? Please be specific as possible

Answer 1

About Beethoven Style of Music:

Beethoven's music is characterized by large dynamic spans from barely audible, to dead-rousing. Beethoven was one of the earliest introspective composers, and his music is evidence of his deep understanding of the range of human emotions, and their related depth and subtlety. As a master of classical forms, Beethoven's music is structured familiarly, yet has a timeless freshness due to his inventive use of previously avoided sounds. Beethoven was a contemporary of Mozart.

Beethoven music when compared to others:

As a master, Mozart's style and sound was the gold standard of the time and is what people came to expect. As an exercise, go listen to any three pieces by Mozart in a row, then follow with any 1 piece by Beethoven. your ear will know the difference immediately.

There are all sorts of technical explanations for why Beethoven's music sounds the way it does, and why it's different from everyone else's, but the most important and really striking reason is that his music sounds like that of a time traveler. He was able to capture the sounds of the future and successfully present it to a world obsessed with the present.

Beethoven actually spanned two separate genres, the classical period and the romanticperiod. In the realm of the classical period, he sounds a lot like Haydn, who was his teacher in Vienna for a short period of time. As a side note, Haydn did not think that Beethoven was as great a composer as he turned out to be. Beethoven was highly impressed with the music of George Frederich Handel, a composer from the baroque era.

At times Beethoven and Handel sound similar, and Beethoven and Haydn sound similar, but since Beethoven and Haydn composed during the classical period, Beethoven sounded more like Haydn. Beethoven was, from the beginning introducing new elements into his compositions, and when he reached the point when he composed his Third Symphony (Eroica…originally the Emperor) that composition was the bridge to the bridge that Brough about the romantic era. So, the fact is that Beethoven sounded a bit like many of the composers whom he admired and studied with, but he was so unique that, for the most part, he was entirely original.

Perhaps a more interesting question to ask would be to pose the same question about Wagner. In the line of succession of the great masters, in my opinion, Wagner made the most dramatic departure from that which preceded him.