Ludwig van Beethoven was, and remains today, an Olympian figure in the history of classical music. His influence on the last 150 years of music is unequalled; while generaly a member of the Classicist fold, he was in fact the first
Romantic, and pre-figured virtually all music that followed the
Romantic era as well. Perhaps no other composer in history wrote music of such exhilarating power and expressiveness; certainly no other composer did so against greater odds.
Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770. His father, a music enthusiast, dreamed of molding his son into the next Mozart.
Beethoven never exhibited the astonishing prodigy characteristics of his predecessor, but he was unusually talented, learning the piano, organ and violin at an early age.
At 14, he was already proficient enough on the organ to receive a professional appointment. His family life was chaotic; his father was an alcoholic, and his mother died suddenly when he was only 17. After that tragedy, his domestic situation declined even more, and this condition - combined with support from Haydn - compelled him to leave home in 1790 and travel to Vienna to study composition. In
Vienna, Beethoven first studied with Haydn, but eventually became frustrated with that great composer's teaching methods, moving on to study with other composers. He performed frequently in salons of wealthy nobility, but strangely enough, did not perform in public until he was 25.
But from this point onward, he was embraced by both the common folk and the aristocracy of Vienna, so much so that he never had to rely on court appointments or private patrons for his livelihood. He did receive stipends from admirers and friends, but he remained independent of the shackles of conditional patronage that frustrated so many of his contemporaries. Beethoven was lucky in one sense; he rose to prominence in the musical world at a time when social strata were becoming more flexible, and the emerging power of the middle class provided him many opportunities for performances of his music for public audiences. This, combined with lucrative publishing arrangements, allowed him to live relatively well. He was not ignorant of the benefits of aristocratic support, however; throughout his career, he cultivated a romantic, moody and mercurial image with the upper class and leveraged this persona to achieve a social status equal to the Viennese nobility. Beethoven was a master symphonist - the master symphonist in the eyes of most musicians and composers. His compositions for orchestra were revolutionary in his day; while he adhered to
Classical musical forms, his melodies and orchestration were of such unprecedented power and beauty that they astonished even the most hardened listeners.
Classical music can be best summed by Mr. Dan Romano who said, “Music is the hardest kind of art. It doesn't hang up on a wall and wait to be stared at and enjoyed by passersby. It's communication. Its hours and hours being put into a work of art that may only last, in reality, for a few moments...but if done well and truly appreciated, it lasts in our hearts forever. That's art, speaking with your heart to the hearts of others.” Starting at a young age Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven have done just that with their musical compositions. Both musical composers changed the world of music and captivated the hearts of many. Their love of composing shared many similar traits, though their musical styles were much different.
Skilling then hired Andrew Fastow to cover the holes in Enron’s finances and make the company look profitable. Fastow found a loop hole to cover Enron’s debt, amounting over $30 billion by using special purpose entities by liabilities to subsidiary firms like well-known banks. Therefore, the banks knew what was going on also, and loaned money to Enron. Enron used the money to reward their employees “bonuses”. To meet Enron’s high demands of profits, Enron’s employees would falsify an energy shortage in California that started to profit Enron, however, made California in a $30 billion debt. After Bethany Mclean published “Is Enron Overpriced?”, the troubles at Enron started to become public because Skilling aggressively bullied Mclean over the question “How exactly does Enron make money”. It was not too long when Enron’s stocks started to decline and Skilling resigned because of a “personal matter”. Kenneth Lay became CEO again and tried to reassure his employees and investors that the business was doing good, but in reality, the employees lost their 401k funds in Enron’s stock. Then in 2001 Enron declared bankruptcy and tried to blame Fastow for the
The company was known for taking big risks and returning big rewards. Enron was constantly looking for the next big move to make the company money. Lay and Skilling were both quoted many times stating that in order to make big returns, you must take big risks. One of the first big ideas discussed in the movie was Skilling’s idea to create a new way to deliver energy. His idea was to create a commodities market for natural gas. Lay saw this as a way for Enron to make money and he recruited Skilling to come head this new idea up at Enron, which would later be known as the Gas Bank. Skilling left his consulting role to head the Gas Bank for Enron. Everyone was excited about this great new idea and Skilling and Lay used this to their advantage. Enron began a transition from being a producer of natural gas into a company focused on the trading of natural gas, basically acting as an investment bank in the commodities market. This sector of the business would later be known as Enron Finance Corp; which Skilling would continue to
At the age of twenty-two Beethoven moved to Vienna; it was there where he would stay the rest of his life. In Vienna Beethoven played for Mozart, and it is believed that Mozart even gave him ...
Beethoven, I believe, was ahead of his time. To me, he is the greatest composer of all time. His music is not just sounds of music played together in harmony, but a way of life. The music he created for the world is not just to listen to it, but grabs onto the emotion he was setting up. Beethoven's unordinary style cannot ever be copied by any composer or music artist.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as he is generally known, was baptized in a Salzburg Cathedral on the day after his birth as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus. The first and last given names come from his godfather Joannes Theophilus Pergmayr, although Mozart preferred the Latin form of this last name, Amadeus, more often Amadé, or the Italiano Amadeo, and occasionally the Deutsch Gottlieb. Whatever the case may be, he rarely - if ever - used Theophilus in his signature. The name Chrysostomus originates from St. John Chrysostom, whose feast falls on the 27th of January. The name Wolfgang was given to him in honor of his maternal grandfather, Wolfgang Nikolaus Pertl.
Catanach Jr., A.H., & Ketz, J.E. (2012). ENRON Ten Years Later: Lessons to Remember. CPA Journal, 82(5), 16-23.
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany in 1770. His works are traditionally divided into three periods. In his early period, he focused on imitating classical style, although his personal characteristics of darker pieces, motivic development, and larger forms are already evident or foreshadowed. In his middle period, he is beginning to go deaf, and has realized that he cannot reverse the trend. His works express struggle and triumph. He stretches forms, with development sections becoming the bulk of his works. He is breaking from tradition and laying the groundwork for the romantic style period. In his late period, he breaks almost completely with classical forms, but ironically starts to study and use baroque forms and counterpoint. He is almost completely deaf, and his works become much more introspective with massive amounts of contrast between sections, ideas, and movements. He dies in Vienna in 1827.
Enron was formed following a merger between two natural gas companies in 1985, Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth.3 When Enron formed, it had accumulated a large sum of debt, roughly 2 billion dollars.4 As a result of deregulation, Enron no longer had the exclusive rights to its pipelines, resulting in the company hemorrhaging money. Kenneth Lay5, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Houston Natural Gas, became Enron’s CEO. Lay knew he had to quickly come up with a new innovation to keep the company afloat. Lay hired McKinsey & Company6 to help in coming up with a business strategy for Enron. McKinsey & Company assigned Jeffrey Skilling7 to Enron’s company as a consultant. Skilling, who had a background in banking, asset and liability management, came up with a solution to Enron’s financial crisis in the gas pipeline business. He said to create a “gas bank”, in which Enron would buy gas from a network of suppliers and sell it to a network of consumers, allowing them to control the supply and price of the gas. Enron’s debt was no more, and Lay was so impressed with Skilling, that he created a new d...
The motivation for these actions is clearly greed. Kenneth Lay was solely concerned on how to gain more money. He is said to have liquidated upwards of $300 million of stock invested in Enron and as the share price of Enron started to fall, Lay sold large amounts of stock. Skilling and Fastow, like lay were also into the scam for personal wealth. Skilli...
Enron was a company founded in the year 1985 based in Houston, USA. It was one of the world's largest energy trading and Distribution Company having an income of nearly hundred billion dollars during 2000 and was also regarded as America’s most Innovative companies for 6 consecutive years by the fortune magazine. In the last quarter of 2001, it was exposed that it’s declared financial condition was maintained significantly by systematized and skillfully premeditated accounting fraud, known thereafter as the Enron scandal. They hid major debts and did not book them in the balance sheet. The inflated figures in their balance sheet shot up their stock price to unprecedented levels, taking advantage of the situation executives with insider information traded in millions of dollars of Enron stocks. The senior executives and insiders were aware of the offshore accounts that were covering up losses for the Organization; the investors were kept in the dark. This sent across a domino effect which resulted in shareholders losing seventy four billion dollars, loss of hundreds of jobs and thousands of investors and employees losing their retirement accounts.
In July 1985, the Texas based energy firm Enron Corporation was founded by Kenneth Lay by the merge of Houston Natural Gas and Inter-North. Enron primarily focused on the energy markets, due to electrical power markets becoming deregulated Enron expanded into trading electricity and other energy goods. With Enron growing, the company began moving into new markets. In 1999, Enron launched Enron Online, its website for trading goods. The rapid awareness and use of the business website made it the prime business site in the world with a substantial amount of transactions arising from Enron Online. The growth of Enron was extensive and in 2000, the firm was ranked the 7th largest energy firm in the world with year ending accounts 31 December 2000 showing a profit of $979 million and share prices soaring from $40 to $90 in one year.
The Enron Corporation was an American energy company that provided natural gas, electricity, and communications to its customers both wholesale and retail globally and in the northwestern United States (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Top executives, prestigious law firms, trusted accounting firms, the largest banks in the finance industry, the board of directors, and other high powered people, all played a part in the biggest most popular scandal that shook the faith of the American people in big business and the stock market with the demise of one of the top Fortune 500 companies that made billions of dollars through illegal and unethical gains (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Many shareholders, employees, and investors lost their entire life savings, investments,
Enron was a successful American energy, commodities and services company that is better known for one of the most notorious scandals in United States history. Before their involvement in criminal activity, Enron was also one of world’s major electricity and natural gas companies and was named “America’s Most Innovative Company” by Fortune magazine six years in a row. In 1985, Kenneth Lay, founder and CEO of Enron, merged Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, Inc. to form Enron. By 1992, Enron became one of the largest sellers of natural gas in North America and in 1999, the Enron Online trading website had to be created to manage its trading business. Enron’s European Gas Trading team created Enron Online to allow stock holders to buy, sell, and trade commodity products globally; $6 billion worth of commodities such as gas, steel, metals, and freight were transacted on a daily basis. Enron soon became one of the largest trading sites in the world and “about 90 per cent of its income eventually came from trades over Enron Online” (CBC News).