As you read my title you may be slightly confused, but instead of a composer of the month I teach about a Dead Dude of the Month. It's funny seeing the reactions of my students and even their parents when we talk about our dead dudes. The composers they have come to know and some may even say love are: J. S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, and most recently in January we learned about Beethoven.
Ludwig van Beethoven was a prolific composer and most of us recognize that. Thanks to technology and the power of YouTube I was able to teach a considerable amount on this fantastic composer. To give some history we really focused on his symphonies, and his different musical periods. Beethoven wrote in both the Classical and Romantic Periods, which seemed like a concept I wouldn't be able to get across, but it totally worked! I also talked about his early, middle, and late symphonies in terms of composition.
The first symphony discussed was Beethoven's 3rd the "Eroica". I showed a YouTube clip of an orchestra playing and we discussed who it was written for? Did it sound more Classical or Romantic? Was it from Beethoven's early, middle, or late period? Being his 3rd and the students knew that he wrote 9, they answered it was more Classical and therefore belonged in his early period.
Beethoven's 3rd Symphony "Eroica" -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InxT4S6wQf4
Next we talked of Beethoven's 5th, in which he started losing his hearing. The really liked this one, mainly because they recognized it. The major theme was discussed - the "short, short, short, long". Now was really helps demonstrate this is a sweet YouTube video I found that is almost like a video game playing his 5th. The students could easily follow and see the differences between high voices and low voices (instruments). This video allowed for discussion about why there are different colors - they represent different instruments. We also could see crescendos and decrescendos easily.
Beethoven's 5th Symphony -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRgXUFnfKIY
While we took a break from symphonies my friend Jessica Nilles, a piano performance and pedagogy major at Oklahoma, Skyped with my classes. We all know how technology can be, so we listened to her play two different pieces by Beethoven, piano sonatas, one from his early period and one from his late. Because the quality of our video wasn't the best she was gracious enough to record the pieces and give a little shout out to us in the comments! Woot!!
Here they are for your enjoyment:
Beethoven Sonata Op. 2/3 Mvt. 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zic4cxgBEnY
Beethoven Sonata 110
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEZ4ys3O5JA
To wrap things up for Beethoven we listened and viewed a recording on his 9th Symphony. This one features a quartet, representing each voice part and a choir behind the orchestra. This is unique because it's his only symphony with a choir and he was entirely deaf at this moment.
Here is the video for that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdWyYn0E4Ys
Special thanks to Jessica Nilles for the videos! Please use these videos to help expose everyone to Beethoven's music. Thanks!!
