The Curiosities Of Three Brilliant Composers

Curiosities about Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was despised by the nobility and never considered by the high society of his time. All his Brandenburg concerts (6 in total) were written as a dedication to the Margrave of the Court of this city in Germany. Upon receipt, they were kept in a drawer until someone had the idea of ​​taking them out and releasing them when Bach was still alive.

Another curious fact is that this musician had a total of 20 children, 7 with his first wife and 13 with the second, several of them followed in the footsteps of their father in the art of composing. This is something that he knew very well because as a child Mr. Bach was the one who formed him musically, he was forbidden to study scores by Italian composers like Vivaldi, but at night he would get up and copy them by candlelight.

If he was loved by two important people of the time: a count and a king. In the first case it was a person who could not sleep at night. The doctor advised him to listen to relaxing music and he decided to hire Bach to write as long a work as possible to put him to sleep. It was called “The Goldberg Variations” and was played live every day in an adjoining room. The second was Frederick the Great, who invited him to court to see him play his harpsichord. After offering him an improvisation, he sent him a manuscript of a work centered on this episode.

Bach died blind and always suffered from vision problems. A few days before he passed away, he notably “recovered” his sight and took the opportunity to compose his last cantata where the choir gives thanks to God in a very solemn way.

Curiosities of Beethoven

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) has many curious facts about his life:

-Analyzing the hair of the composer genetically, it has been discovered that he had a lot of lead in his blood, perhaps from having drunk from barrels of this material. And it is possible that his short temper and deafness were due to poisoning in his body.
– The piano trifle “For Elisa”, was actually called “For Teresa”, as has been seen in the original manuscript of April 1810. It is believed that it was a mistake of the copiers since Beethoven had a very bad handwriting .
-This musician did not get to hear his ninth symphony because for the premiere he was already completely deaf. When the concert ended , he thought that for some accident or reason they had stopped playing, until he turned around and saw all the spectators standing clapping, since the work had finished.
“I prefer men a thousand times to anyone,” said Beethoven, a clear lover of nature. In order to realize this, you can also listen to his sixth symphony, “La Pastoral”, where he tries to translate the sounds of the earth into an orchestra.
– He used to be seen always misaligned, with old clothes, shouting melodies that came to him, his hair disheveled, noting things in his notebook. It is also known that he had sudden outbursts of anger and was compared to a “wild animal” that even destroyed rooms. With the people he loved, like his nephew Karl, he was really very affectionate.

Curiosities of Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791) was a Freemason and this could be known from many attitudes, but above all because he used the number 3 in a row, a representative figure of this lodge and fundamental in rituals. Many of his works contain 3. For example, in “The Magic Flute” there are: three major chords in the overture, three children leading the protagonist into the forest, three fairies, three trials, three magical instruments, three temples and three qualities. of the principal.

In almost all his works, Mozart included something “risque”, something camouflaged eroticism, although sometimes not so much. He composed a canon whose title was totally pornographic: Leck Mich im Arsch (Lick my ass in translation).

But some years before, he was a child and was considered a prodigy and a reputed concert performer at just 8 years old. His first symphony was much more than what was expected for a boy his age. The last one he wrote (No. 41), composed before he died, has 4 notes equal to the Andante of the first: do, re, mi, fa. Perhaps he did not know that he was not going to do more.

Testimonies from that time report that Mozart did not like the sound of the flute at all. “The only thing worse than two flutes is two,” he said. The concerts he wrote with this instrument were commissioned and later he began to replace it with the clarinet, which from then on was considered suitable for orchestras.