Beethoven: Symphony No, 1: 1St Movement

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 Listening Log #1 Beethoven: Symphony No, 1: 1st Movement Ludwig Van Beethoven was a born in Bonn, Germany in December 1770. He was a composer and considered a virtuoso pianiast; he also began going deaf in the late 1790's. He soon went completely deaf, yet continued to compose and perform. He died in March of 1827. [1] Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 was first performed April 2, 1800, at the Imperial Theatre in Vienna. Beethoven dedicated Symphony No. 1 to the director of the Imperial Library, Baron Gottfried van SwietenIt. It is not known as to when this piece was originally composed, but drafts were found from 1795. The work is scored for 2 clarinets, 2 flutes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 oboes, timpani and strings. [1] [2] Symphony No. 1 consists of four movements; Part 1 - Adagio molto, Part 2 – Andante cantabile con moto, Part 3 – Menuetto, Allegro molto e vivace and Part 4 – Allegro molto e vivace. Adagio molto begins with what appears to be the wrong tonality. This is evident if we look at how the dominant chord resolves to the subdominant key. At the time this was widely considered to be a musical joke, yet it could also be a testament to the fact that Beethoven would often experimented with out of the box ways of thinking. A music critic of the time, who had a good insight into beethoven's composition styles remarked "No one will censure an ingenious artist like Beethoven for such liberties and peculiarities, but such a beginning is not suitable for the opening of a grand concert in a spacious opera house." [3] After taking the time to listen to this movement several times and also studying the score as much as I possibly could with the limited musical analysis skills I possesses, I came to the conclusion that all though this movement follows a basic rhythmic structures

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