Just finished listening to the Eroica on the radio. Will next play Op. 26 and Op. 78. Later will listen to the final String Quartets with the Julliard. How will you celebrate?

It's his birthday?

I've gotta put on some music!

For those who are XM subscribers, XM Classics (Channel 110) will be playing Beethoven's music all day.

A toast to the greatest musical genius of them all! Thank you, LvB!

Sophia

today is his birthday? how odd, i just put on a Beethoven symphony 7&8 CD in and am listening...

Wow, same day as MINE!!! I knew that . Ill play the Pathetique today:)

Best,
godowskian

I'll practise his sonata op.2 no.2 today and I've gotta go listen to his piano concerto no.5 and his symphonys.

happy birthday from your friend Johann

I've been having a pre-birthday celebration all week. Being on vacation has given me some extra time so I've been working on his Apassionata (again).

Happy Birthday Herr Beethoven.

John

Happy Birthday Mr. Beethoven! It's my mom's birthday aswell.

I'll be listening to most of the piano concertos this evening.

Wow, it's my mom's birthday too!

By who?

his birthday is tomorrow, the 17th, I thought.

Nope, 16th, same as Jane Austen and my dear departed grandmother

Do you know where Jane Austen lies? I stood there.

(No mention is made of her being a writer...)

Winchester Cathedral. I haven't stood there, alas, but maybe one day...
I suspect she would have been pleased with the inscription, as one who valued being more than doing.

Mmm, I downloaded the Moscheles solo piano arrangement of the 4th concerto (but not really consciously realizing it was the birthday).

[pedantic hat on]
We assume Beethoven was born on the 16th because he was baptised on the 17th, and it was customary to baptise the child a day after birth.
[pedantic hat off]
Now it is time to listen to a few of the late quartets as recorded by the magnificent Emersons...

Happy Birthday Ludwig!! How can the musical world survive without you?

Could you post a link to that site? I'd like to have a look at that...

well then..

happy birthday Ludwig!

Here it is:

http://www.henseltlibrary.org/sources.html

These scores are mostly from gamingforce and pianophilia.


Mel

Happy 237 years Ludwig !

I don't think you had too many happy birthday parties in your life.

(I've read that Beethoven was baptized the 17th december and that the date of birth is not known)

I'll go home and listen to the 3rd piano concerto.

Ragnhild

Without realizing that it was Beethoven’s birthday ( 237 years old) I had found myself playing my way through the Moonlight,
Pathetique and Appassionata Sonatas ... revisiting every nook and cranny ... the ingenuity of the note patterns on each and every page proved an impossible attraction to ever want to call it a day ... I suppose other chaps get their kicks hang-gliding or swimming amongst sharks ... but the adrenalin-rush in re-living a Beethoven sonata is something else.

Wouldn’t it be marvellous if the old codger is looking down on us from some celestial utopia (“Roll over Beethoven”) ... and warmly applauds our kind thoughts.

This is such a cute arrangement! Anyone know if sheet music for this exists somewhere?

Many, many thanks, Mel! That will keep me happily occupied, probably to the detriment of chores which should require priority.

Back on topic -and in honour of the master's b-day- I played through the Op. 27#1. Why this utter masterpiece remains so completely in the shadow of its sibling is beyond comprehension. It has moments of sheer magic.

last night i listened to Beethoven's symphony 1 & 3, couldn't help thinking, when 1st movement of no.3 started, that how magnificient that music is which no one before and no one after ever could create...

Thanks much for the link. That site is definitely my kind of place!

I actually got the Moscheles from pianophilia, which I had just discovered while googling Gino Tagliapietra. Talk about hard to find - Tagliapietra scores are really elusive, although I did come across someone who is selling a pdf package of most of his stuff online at a price I am not willing to pay (particularly not without any samples to check quality before purchase).

237, 236, or 235?

[stealing Janus's pedantic hat]

Beethoven himself always insisted he was born in 1772.
His parents said he was born in 1771.
His birth certificate said he was born in 1770.

Maynard Solomon dedicated a whole chapter to that controversy in his Beethoven biography. Beethoven had an older brother, also Ludwig (Maria) von Beethoven, who died in infancy, in 1768. When confronted with his birth certificate dated 1770, he always argued that that certificate must have been for his older brother with the same name (assuming incorrectly that his brother was born/died in 1770, not 1768), and that his own certificate must have been lost.

Of course, that last statement raises a big bruhaha -- if our dear Ludwig (not Maria) van Beethoven's birth certificate couldn't be found, what did that mean? Perhaps that he was a bastard child of some prince? That his mother was a whore? Myths, of course. His birth certificate wasn't lost -- it stated correctly that he was born in 1770.

Of course then there's the ordeal of his parents claiming he was born in 1771 -- Solomon's theory is that this was an attempt to make young Louis seem younger, and hence more of a child prodigy.

[/stealing Janus's pedantic hat]

Thanks, pianojerome, I was about to bring up that topic, but decided not to. And you can use my pedantic hat anytime!