Ludwig Van Beethoven and W.A. Mozart

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Ludwig Van Beethoven and W.A. Mozart

Ludwig Van Beethoven and W.A. Mozart are the two most important musicians of their time. Their pieces are everlasting and will live on forever. Their styles are so unique and uplifting that they could never be matched. These masterminds played in the same time period but their lives differed tremendously. There are some similarities and many differences between these two but one fact will remain: They are the central and most vital part of all music.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was one of the most prolific and important musical innovators we have ever seen. His style of music helped re-shape music and the Classical period. Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756. Mozart was a child prodigy, claiming most success as a youth. At the age of six, Mozart could play the harpsichord and violin, improvise fugues, write minuets, and read music perfectly. At the age of eight, he wrote a symphony and at eleven, an oratorio. Then amazingly, at the age of twelve he wrote an opera. Mozart's father was Leopold Mozart, a court musician. Both Mozart and Beethoven had help from their fathers in different ways. Mozart's father helped him travel around as a young musician and with this he traveled many places and seen many well-known people and aristocrats. With Mozart's early successes came many challenges to his life. He had greater expectations from the community and from his father. Unlike, Beethoven, Mozart was a bit spoiled as a youth and because of this he would not tolerate to be treated as a servant. He completely relied on his father to help him and would not work with the archbishop. This would become a problem when Mozart did not develop enough initiative and could not make decisions on his ow...

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...ist and deserved more respect than an average person. Beethoven was struck

with what would be his greatest downfall; deafness. This occurred in 1802 when doctors learned that he was in fact becoming deaf and there was nothing that could be done to help. This impairment reshaped his music. This led the way to a very tense and exciting side of his pieces. Beethoven's music differs with Mozart's in that is more intense and has a greater range of pitch and dynamics. Beethoven's greatest pieces are his symphonies, which can be heard today as often as in his days. Beethoven was a very good innovator

with his variations to music. Compared to Mozart, Beethoven tried to unify contrasting movements by means of musical continuity. Often times Beethoven's music would not have a clear ending and were dragged out a bit longer than expected. Beethoven died in 1827, in Vienna.

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