Thayer's Life of Beethoven has been sitting on my shelf of books to read since college. I finally pulled it out all these years later and dove in. It isn't easy. It's a scholarly research work. It reads like geneology research, which it is. There is no narrative or dramatic thrust.
As dry as the reading is, a picture forms and musical insights emerge. When he was a youth, Beethoven was an organist. In today's terms you would say that was his gig. He worked a lot as an organist to support his livelihood. That bears keeping in mind as his musical thinking develops.
At 17 he made a trip to Vienna and met and played for Mozart. His studies were soon interrupted by his mother's illness, but at some point he heard Mozart play.
As dry as the reading is, a picture forms and musical insights emerge. When he was a youth, Beethoven was an organist. In today's terms you would say that was his gig. He worked a lot as an organist to support his livelihood. That bears keeping in mind as his musical thinking develops.
At 17 he made a trip to Vienna and met and played for Mozart. His studies were soon interrupted by his mother's illness, but at some point he heard Mozart play.
Czerny later recounts Beethoven's impressions of Mozart at the piano: "he had a fine but choppy way of playing, no ligato." Czerny adds that Beethoven played this way at first, treating the pianoforte like an organ. (Thayer, p. 88)
So here we see a road to one of Beethoven's musical priorities. Formative years as an organist, a pianist role model, and the synthesis of his view of how piano tones should connect.
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