German composer and pianist, born in 1770 (baptized 17 December 1770) in Bonn, Germany and died 26 March 1827 in Vienna, Austria.
A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in classical music. Beethoven led Viennese Classicism to its highest development and paved the way for Romantic music.
Beethoven was the eldest son of a singer in the Kapelle of the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne and grandson of the Archbishop's Kapellmeister. He moved in 1792 to Vienna, where he had some lessons from Haydn and others, quickly establishing himself as a remarkable keyboard-player and original composer. By 1815 increasing deafness made public performance impossible and accentuated existing eccentricities of character, patiently tolerated by a series of rich patrons and his royal pupil the Archduke Rudolph.
Beethoven did much to enlarge the possibilities of music and widen the horizons of later generations of composers. To his contemporaries he was sometimes a controversial figure, making heavy demands on listeners both by the length and by the complexity of his writing, as he explored new fields of music.
Berliner Philharmoniker
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Herbert von Karajan
Real Name:
Heribert Ritter von Karajan
Profile:
Austrian conductor, born April 5, 1908 in Salzburg, Austria-Hungary (now Austria) and died July 16, 1989 in Anif, Austria. Younger brother of
Wolfgang von Karajan. He was married to Elmy Holgerloef (m. 1938, div. 1942), Anna Maria "Anita" Sauest (m. 1942, div. 1958), and
Eliette von Karajan (m. 1958). Karajan and Eliette are the parents of
Isabel Karajan and
Arabel von Karajan.
His brilliant international career began in 1949 and led him to be one of the most eminent conductors of the twentieth century.
In 1955 he succeeded
Wilhelm Furtwängler in the direction of the
Berliner Philharmoniker; orchestra that has reached supreme degrees of perfectionism thanks to his tenacity and to his well-known meticulousness combined with a perfect knowledge of the orchestra and the possibilities of the instrumentalists.
