[MUSIC] Beethoven is a well known figure, not just in music, but in western culture. I'm holding here a copy of a Charles Schultz Peanuts cartoon. I won't put it up for long, because likely it's being governed by rigid copyright laws. But it shows Linus and Lucy at a grand piano. And on top of it sits a bust of Beethoven. There were lots of busts of Beethoven from the 19th century on. And here I have an action figure of Beethoven. Now I don't know what action he's up to, but surely he's up to something powerful. And indeed, prior to the film Amadeus, which centered on Mozart, when the average educated listener thought of classical music, the go-to guy for classical music, who thought of a musical motive from classical musical such as this. [MUSIC] Thought of Beethoven and his music. After Amadeus, however, public consciousness about classical music begins to shift a bit to Mozart. So these two figures, Mozart and Beethoven, stand at the heart of western classical music, chronologically and culturally. So let's compare them. And let's pursue this by means of a quiz. So here we have on our screen a series of questions. Which composer was a child prodigy on the keyboard? Which would you imagine? Well they both actually were. Which composer had a father in the business, who was also a professional musician? Well, again, they both did. Leopold was a violinist, Johann van Beethoven, he was a tenor in the choir at the Court of Bonn. Which composer had an abusive father who locked him in the basement if he didn't practice? That may be a slight exaggeration but not much of one. Well, in this case, it's Beethoven, because father Leopold Mozart, provided a very enlightened education and upbringing for his son. Four, which composer had a father who passed him off a year younger than he really was? Well, again, both fathers did this. Father Beethoven sometimes tried to pass him off as being two years younger than he really was. Both of these gentlemen were short, so it was feasible. And Beethoven went through his entire life, imagine that, went through his entire life thinking he was actually two years younger than he really was. When he died in 1827, Beethoven believed that he was 55, not 57. Which composer was skilled on the violin and organ as well as the piano? Well, both of them were. Which composer was short and had a pockmarked face? Well, Beethoven from birth and Mozart also from his experience, as we mentioned before, with smallpox. Which composer had absolute pitch, or perfect pitch? Well, we know for sure that Mozart did and undoubtedly Beethoven as well. Let's go onto our next sequences. Which composer moved from a much smaller town to Vienna, so as to test his performing and compositional skills against the very best? Well as you undoubtedly know, they both did. Mozart and Beethoven. Mozart moving from Salzburg, Beethoven moving from Bonn. Which composer enjoyed a lucrative position as a court composer to the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna? Well here, lucrative is the key word, and it was really only Mozart who enjoyed a position here of really any sort. Beethoven had an annuity from the Arch Duke, but it was not directly from the Holy Roman Emperor himself. Which composer studied either directly or indirectly with the older master Joseph Haydn? Well, they both did, in the sense that Mozart studied Haydn's scores and was a good personal friend of Haydn. And Beethoven studied as a pupil with the older man, his teach Joseph Haydn. Which composer regularly worked, regularly composed away from the piano. Away from the piano, not at the piano. Well, unlike Haydn who worked at the piano, both Mozart and Beethoven regularly simply composed at a composing desk of one sort or another. They had the music in their ears, they didn't need to get inspiration from a keyboard instrument of any kind. Okay, and now to the personal qualities of this. They were very different sorts of people. Which composer was puctilliously attentive to his dress? Well, Mozart and you can see how Mozart loved those red coats with the gold buttons. Here on the right we see Beethoven. Actually Beethoven all gussied out. All ready to go. This is, in a sense better than Beethoven ever looked. In terms of his attire, he was rather messy. Which composer, following this line along, which composer was on more than one occasion, arrested because he looked like a derelict or a vagrant? And that was Beethoven, wandering around the streets of Vienna. Which composer got all tidied up by history? Well, they both did as we'll see in the portraits of Beethoven. He always looked better in his portraits than he did in reality. And by Mozart, look at Mozart in the actual portrait about 1779 or so. And how history has taken that image out of that portrait and refined it or prettied it up if you will. Which composer was a prodigy as a composer? Well here, really only Mozart. Beethoven didn't write anything really of significance that we play today until his mid 20s, Mozart, much earlier, a good decade earlier. Which composer wrote nearly finished manuscripts, and which composer labored mightily on his scores? Well, to answer this, let's look at some autographs. Here's the autographs, as you can see by the title up there, of what proved to be Mozart's last symphony. The Symphony Number 41. As you can see, it's neat. It's a tidy score. The violins are at the top. There may be a correction in the upper left there, in the second violin part at the arrow. But the fact that you can tell what the instruments are tells us something. This is a very legible score. And if you're familiar with Mozart's autographs, you can tell that he is moving through this at lightning speed. It has to do with the angle of the note heads and the density of the ink. So he's just pouring this out straight out of his head. Now, by comparison let's go over and we'll see an image of a symphony by Beethoven. Now, when I saw this the title said Symphony Number 9, and I had to think about, well where the heck in Symphony Number 9 are we? And I got out a full score and rooted around a bit, and was able to figure out that we're in the first movement of this, what also proved to be the last symphony of Beethoven, his Symphony Number 9. But what a difference compared to the Mozart here, we see correction piled upon correction, one on top of the other, something of a musical train wreck. Well here, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. The picture Mozart flying by and that of Beethoven laboring mightily, struggling. And that sense of labor and struggle oddly, is something that we hear in the music of Beethoven and each of us can personally relate to. So let's explore now the messy Beethoven, and how this unusual person became something of a poster boy, an icon for the creative artist generally in the early 19th century.
