Beethoven how many works

Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, nine concertos, and a variety of other orchestral music, ranging from overtures and incidental music for theatrical productions to other miscellaneous "occasional" works, written for a particular occasion. Of the concertos, seven are widely known one violin concerto, five piano concertos, and one triple concerto for violin, piano, and cello ; the other two are an early piano concerto WoO 4 and an arrangement of the Violin Concerto for piano and orchestra Opus 61a.

Beethoven is believed to have intended to write a Tenth Symphony in the last year of his life; a performing version of possible sketches was assembled by Barry Cooper. Beethoven wrote 16 string quartets and numerous other forms of chamber music, including piano trios, string trios, and sonatas for violin and cello with piano, as well as works with wind instruments.

While he completed only one opera, Beethoven wrote vocal music throughout his life, including two Mass settings, other works for chorus and orchestra in addition to the Ninth Symphony , arias, duets, art songs lieder , and true song cycles. The following is a list of Beethoven's works, sorted by Opus number, followed by works listed as WoO in the Kinsky—Halm Catalogue, and then works listed in the appendix of that catalogue, which are given "Anhang" numbers.

These are followed by additional works with Hess numbers listed in the catalogue of Willy Hess that are not otherwise listed in the Kinsky—Halm Catalogue. Lastly there are works with Biamonti numbers Bia. The opus numbers were assigned by publishers to Beethoven's works as they were published.

The opus numbers do not include all works that were published in Beethoven's lifetime nor are they in chronological order. For instance, the Octet Op. The numbers and categories used below are from the Kinsky—Halm Catalogue of Unlike with opus numbers which were assigned depending on when the works were published, WoO numbers were assigned by genre.

These are works from the Appendix Anhang in German of Kinsky's catalog that were attributed to Beethoven at the time the catalog was compiled, but might not have been written by him. He wrote a choir into his Symphony No. He became known for his dramaturgical compositions and, instead of long motifs, he preferred short ones which were easier to recognize, as the opening of his famous Fifth Symphony illustrates.

Beethoven composed some works, including symphonies, piano concertos, string quartets, and one opera. Beethoven was a perfectionist. He did not compose for his contemporaries, but for posterity. He would revise and correct his scores again and again, until late at night. He achieved his goal: Beethoven is now one of the most frequently performed composers in the world. Even during his lifetime, he was able to live on his compositions. He also earned money with commissioned works for political figures of his time.

Peter Freiherr von Braun commissioned Beethoven's "Fidelio. Beethoven successfully reworked it, producing a third and fourth version of the score.

The plot is based on an actual event of the French Revolution: A heroic woman, dressed as a man, freed her husband from the prison of the Jacobins. The interval signal used for decades on Deutsche Welle's radio programs was borrowed from an aria in "Fidelio.

Beethoven wasn't only interested in music, but also in philosophy, literature and politics. In the early phases of his musical career, he would pay tribute to heroism. However, when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor, Beethoven furiously erased this dedication from his score.

The beginning of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony from is world renowned. The motif of the first movement is made of just four tones. Altogether, Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, a lot fewer than Mozart, who composed over From revolutionary to pop idol Charistimatic, but tempermental A serious look, slightly grim face and a lion's mane: images of Ludwig van Beethoven have imprinted themselves into the collective imagination arguably moreso than any other composer.

Yet, it's mainly the late portraits that have shaped today's notions of the revolutionary, combative and difficult artist. Forceful, yet with a hint of smile, a young Beethoven looks out at the viewer in this painting from By that time, he had already attracted some of the most influential music patrons of the Viennese aristocracy. Prince Carl von Lichnowsky was one of Beethoven's first supporters, with whom he later had a falling-out. In this picture by Julius Schmid from , "Beethoven plays at Lichnowsky," the dispute between the prince and the composer seems to be already underway.

Beethoven not only met Goethe in Teplitz, Bohemia, in , but a legendary and scandalous snub also took place: While the poet bowed reverently before the prince, composer Beethoven walked right by him with his head held high.

That, at least, is the way Carl Rohling imagined the revolutionary scene. Beethoven was not only enthused by the ideas of the French Revolution, but also by new methods of composition. There's no doubt that Beethoven was one of the most popular artists of his time - which the countless portraits of him demonstrate.

One of the best known is this image created by Joseph Karl Stieler in Compared to other artists, Stieler portrayed Beethoven less realistically, but instead, in a more idealized fashion. Later, the painting was used as a template for engravings in which the contours became even more pronounced. It is surely no coincidence that Andy Warhol chose this image for his own renditions.

Bonn - Beethoven's birthplace - is also home to several variations of Stieler's image: as a stone sculpture in front of the Beethoven Hall, sometimes - especially during the Beethovenfest in September - as a painting on the pavement, or as graffiti on a wall - such as here near the Beethoven House, where the composer was born.

For the premiere of his First Symphony , Beethoven hired the Burgtheater on 2 April , and staged an extensive program of music, including works by Haydn and Mozart, as well as his Septet, the First Symphony, and one of his piano concertos the latter three works all then unpublished.

Mozart and Haydn were undeniable influences. By the end of Beethoven and his music were already much in demand from patrons and publishers. Shortly after these lessons, Josephine was married to Count Josef Deym. Beethoven was a regular visitor at their house, continuing to teach Josephine, and playing at parties and concerts.

Her marriage was by all accounts happy despite initial financial problems , and the couple had four children. Her relationship with Beethoven intensified after Deym died suddenly in Beethoven had few other students.

From to , he tutored Ferdinand Ries, who went on to become a composer and later wrote Beethoven remembered , a book about their encounters. The young Carl Czerny studied with Beethoven from to In the spring of he completed The Creatures of Prometheus , a ballet. The work received numerous performances in and , and Beethoven rushed to publish a piano arrangement to capitalise on its early popularity.

In the spring of he completed the Second Symphony, intended for performance at a concert that was canceled. The symphony received its premiere instead at a subscription concert in April at the Theater an der Wien, where Beethoven had been appointed composer in residence.

Reviews were mixed, but the concert was a financial success; Beethoven was able to charge three times the cost of a typical concert ticket. Beethoven acceded to these requests, as he could not prevent publishers from hiring others to do similar arrangements of his works.

Around , by the age of 26, Beethoven began to lose his hearing. As early as , Beethoven wrote to friends describing his symptoms and the difficulties they caused in both professional and social settings although it is likely some of his close friends were already aware of the problems.

Beethoven, on the advice of his doctor, lived in the small Austrian town of Heiligenstadt, just outside Vienna, from April to October in an attempt to come to terms with his condition. There he wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter to his brothers which records his thoughts of suicide due to his growing deafness and records his resolution to continue living for and through his art.

Over time, his hearing loss became profound: at the end of the premiere of his Ninth Symphony in , he had to be turned around to see the tumultuous applause of the audience because he could hear neither it nor the orchestra.

After a failed attempt in to perform his own Piano Concerto No. Despite his obvious distress, Czerny remarked that Beethoven could still hear speech and music normally until Used primarily in the last ten or so years of his life, his friends wrote in these books so that he could know what they were saying, and he then responded either orally or in the book.

While Beethoven earned income from publication of his works and from public performances, he also depended on the generosity of patrons for income, for whom he gave private performances and copies of works they commissioned for an exclusive period prior to their publication. Some of his early patrons, including Prince Lobkowitz and Prince Lichnowsky, gave him annual stipends in addition to commissioning works and purchasing published works. The cleric Cardinal-Priest and the composer became friends, and their meetings continued until Beethoven dedicated 14 compositions to Rudolph, including the Archduke Trio and his great Missa Solemnis Rudolph, in turn, dedicated one of his own compositions to Beethoven.

The letters Beethoven wrote to Rudolph are today kept at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. Only Archduke Rudolph paid his share of the pension on the agreed date. Kinsky, immediately called to military duty, did not contribute and soon died after falling from his horse. Lobkowitz stopped paying in September No successors came forward to continue the patronage, and Beethoven relied mostly on selling composition rights and a small pension after The effects of these financial arrangements were undermined to some extent by war with France, which caused significant inflation when the government printed money to fund its war efforts.

From now on I intend to take a new way. The first major work employing this new style was the Third Symphony in E flat, known as the Eroica. This work was longer and larger in scope than any previous symphony. When it premiered in early it received a mixed reception. Some listeners objected to its length or misunderstood its structure, while others viewed it as a masterpiece. Sorry, your browser either has JavaScript disabled or does not have any supported player.

You can download the clip or download a player to play the clip in your browser. The term is more frequently used as an alternative name for the middle period.

Some of the middle period works extend the musical language Beethoven had inherited from Haydn and Mozart. His position at the Theater an der Wien was terminated when the theater changed management in early , and he was forced to move temporarily to the suburbs of Vienna with his friend Stephan von Breuning. This slowed work on Fidelio , his largest work to date, for a time. It was delayed again by the Austrian censor, and finally premiered in November to houses that were nearly empty because of the French occupation of the city.

In addition to being a financial failure, this version of Fidelio was also a critical failure, and Beethoven began revising it. The work of the middle period established Beethoven as a master. In a review from , he was enshrined by E.

Beethoven mentions his love for Julie in a November letter to his boyhood friend, Franz Wegeler, but he could not consider marrying her, due to the class difference.

Beethoven later dedicated to her his Sonata No. His relationship with Josephine Brunsvik deepened after the death in of her aristocratic first husband, the Count Joseph Deym. Although his feelings were obviously reciprocated, Josephine was forced by her family to withdraw from him in In the spring of Beethoven became seriously ill, suffering headaches and high fever. On the advice of his doctor, he spent six weeks in the Bohemian spa town of Teplitz. The following winter, which was dominated by work on the Seventh symphony, he was again ill, and his doctor ordered him to spend the summer of at the spa Teplitz.

Beethoven visited his brother Johann at the end of October He was unable to convince Johann to end the relationship and appealed to the local civic and religious authorities. Johann and Therese married on 9 November. In early Beethoven apparently went through a difficult emotional period, and his compositional output dropped. His personal appearance degraded—it had generally been neat—as did his manners in public, especially when dining. Beethoven took care of his brother who was suffering from tuberculosis and his family, an expense that he claimed left him penniless.

It was first performed on 8 December, along with his Seventh Symphony, at a charity concert for victims of the war. The work was a popular hit, probably because of its programmatic style, which was entertaining and easy to understand.

It received repeat performances at concerts Beethoven staged in January and February That summer he composed a piano sonata for the first time in five years No. This work was in a markedly more Romantic style than his earlier sonatas.

He was also one of many composers who produced music in a patriotic vein to entertain the many heads of state and diplomats who came to the Congress of Vienna that began in November Biographers have speculated on a variety of other reasons that also contributed to the decline, including the difficulties in the personal lives of his would-be paramours and the harsh censorship policies of the Austrian government.

The illness and death of his brother Carl from tuberculosis may also have played a role. Carl had been ill for some time, and Beethoven spent a small fortune in on his care. Beethoven, who considered Johanna an unfit parent because of her morals she had an illegitimate child by a different father before marrying Carl and had been convicted of theft and financial management, had successfully applied to Carl to have himself named sole guardian of the boy.

The Austrian court system had one court for the nobility and members of the Landtafel, the Landrechte, and many other courts for commoners, among them the Civil Court of the Vienna Magistrate. Owing to his influence with the court, Beethoven felt assured of the favorable outcome of being awarded sole guardianship.

While giving evidence to the Landrechte, however, Beethoven inadvertently admitted that he was not nobly born. On 18 December the case was transferred to the Magistracy, where he lost sole guardianship. Beethoven appealed and regained custody. Karl attempted suicide on 31 July by shooting himself in the head.

He and Beethoven were reconciled, but Karl insisted on joining the army and last saw Beethoven in early Beethoven began a renewed study of older music, including works by J. Bach and Handel, that were then being published in the first attempts at complete editions. He composed the overture The Consecration of the House , which was the first work to attempt to incorporate these influences. He returned to the keyboard to compose his first piano sonatas in almost a decade: the works of the late period are commonly held to include the last five piano sonatas and the Diabelli Variations , the last two sonatas for cello and piano, the late string quartets see below , and two works for very large forces: the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony.

On the downside, his hearing had deteriorated to the point that conversation became difficult, necessitating the use of conversation books.

His household management had also improved somewhat; Nanette Streicher, who had assisted in his care during his illness, continued to provide some support, and he finally found a skilled cook. In he was again preoccupied by the legal processes around Karl, and began work on the Diabelli Variations and the Missa Solemnis. For the next few years he continued to work on the Missa, composing piano sonatas and bagatelles to satisfy the demands of publishers and the need for income, and completing the Diabelli Variations.

He was ill again for an extended time in , and completed the Missa in , three years after its original due date. He also opened discussions with his publishers over the possibility of producing a complete edition of his work, an idea that was arguably not fully realised until