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3,500 | Phenol was a critical material because two derivatives were in high growth phases. Bakelite, the original thermoset plastic, had been invented in 1909. Aspirin, too was a phenol derivative. Invented in 1899, it had become a block buster drug. Bayer had acquired a plant to manufacture in the US in Rensselaer, New York, ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,501 | Bayer relied on Chemische Fabrik von Heyden, in Piscataway, New Jersey, to convert phenol to salicylic acid, which they converted to aspirin. (See Great Phenol plot.) It is said that German companies bought up supplies of phenol to block production of ammonium picrate. Edison preferred not to sell phenol for military u... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,502 | In 1920, Edison spoke to "American Magazine", saying that he had been working on a device for some time to see if it was possible to communicate with the dead. Edison said the device would work on scientific principles not by an occult means. The announcement caused a press heyday, though the actual nature of this inve... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,503 | Henry Ford, the automobile magnate, later lived a few hundred feet away from Edison at his winter retreat in Fort Myers. Ford once worked as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit and met Edison at a convention of affiliated Edison illuminating companies in Brooklyn, NY in 1896. Edison was impressed... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,504 | In 1928, Edison joined the Fort Myers Civitan Club. He believed strongly in the organization, writing that "The Civitan Club is doing things—big things—for the community, state, and nation, and I certainly consider it an honor to be numbered in its ranks." He was an active member in the club until his death, sometimes ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,505 | Edison was active in business right up to the end. Just months before his death, the Lackawanna Railroad inaugurated suburban electric train service from Hoboken to Montclair, Dover, and Gladstone, New Jersey. Electrical transmission for this service was by means of an overhead catenary system using direct current, whi... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,506 | This fleet of cars would serve commuters in northern New Jersey for the next 54 years until their retirement in 1984. A plaque commemorating Edison's inaugural ride can be seen today in the waiting room of Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, which is presently operated by New Jersey Transit. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,507 | Edison was said to have been influenced by a popular fad diet in his last few years; "the only liquid he consumed was a pint of milk every three hours". He is reported to have believed this diet would restore his health. However, this tale is doubtful. In 1930, the year before Edison died, Mina said in an interview abo... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,508 | Edison became the owner of his Milan, Ohio, birthplace in 1906. On his last visit, in 1923, he was reportedly shocked to find his old home still lit by lamps and candles. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,509 | Edison died of complications of diabetes on October 18, 1931, in his home, "Glenmont" in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey, which he had purchased in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina. Rev. Stephen J. Herben officiated at the funeral; Edison is buried behind the home. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,510 | Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at The Henry Ford museum near Detroit. Ford reportedly convinced Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in the inventor's room shortly after his death, as a memento. A plaster death mask and casts of Edison's hands were also made. Mina died in 1947. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,511 | On December 25, 1871, at the age of 24, Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell (1855–1884), whom he had met two months earlier; she was an employee at one of his shops. They had three children: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,512 | Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9, 1884, of unknown causes: possibly from a brain tumor or a morphine overdose. Doctors frequently prescribed morphine to women in those years to treat a variety of causes, and researchers believe that her symptoms could have been from morphine poisoning. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,513 | On February 24, 1886, at the age of 39, Edison married the 20-year-old Mina Miller (1865–1947) in Akron, Ohio. She was the daughter of the inventor Lewis Miller, co-founder of the Chautauqua Institution, and a benefactor of Methodist charities. They also had three children together: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,514 | Wanting to be an inventor, but not having much of an aptitude for it, Thomas Edison's son, Thomas Alva Edison Jr., became a problem for his father and his father's business. Starting in the 1890s, Thomas Jr. became involved in snake oil products and shady and fraudulent enterprises producing products being sold to the ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,515 | Historian Paul Israel has characterized Edison as a "freethinker". Edison was heavily influenced by Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason". Edison defended Paine's "scientific deism", saying, "He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which oth... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,516 | Edison was accused of being an atheist for those remarks, and although he did not allow himself to be drawn into the controversy publicly, he clarified himself in a private letter: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,517 | He also stated, "I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt." In 1920, Edison set off a media sensation when he told B. C. Forbes of "American Magazine" that he was working on a "spirit phone" to allow communication with the dead, a story which other newspape... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,518 | Edison was a supporter of women's suffrage. He said in 1915, "Every woman in this country is going to have the vote." Edison notably signed onto a statement supporting women's suffrage which was published to counter anti-suffragist literature spread by Senator James Edgar Martine. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,519 | Nonviolence was key to Edison's political and moral views, and when asked to serve as a naval consultant for World War I, he specified he would work only on defensive weapons and later noted, "I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill." Edison's philosophy of nonviolence extended to animals as well, ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,520 | Edison was an advocate for monetary reform in the United States. He was ardently opposed to the gold standard and debt-based money. Famously, he was quoted in the "New York Times" as stating: "Gold is a relic of Julius Caesar, and interest is an invention of Satan." In the same article, he expounded upon the absurdity ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,521 | In May 1922, he published a proposal, entitled "A Proposed Amendment to the Federal Reserve Banking System". In it, he detailed an explanation of a commodity-backed currency, in which the Federal Reserve would issue interest-free currency to farmers, based on the value of commodities they produced. During a publicity t... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,522 | Several places have been named after Edison, most notably the town of Edison, New Jersey. Thomas Edison State University, nationally known for adult learners, is in Trenton, New Jersey. Two community colleges are named for him: Edison State College (now Florida SouthWestern State College) in Fort Myers, Florida, and | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,523 | Edison Community College in Piqua, Ohio. There are numerous high schools named after Edison (see Edison High School) and other schools including Thomas A. Edison Middle School. Footballer Pelé's father originally named him Edison, as a tribute to the inventor of the light bulb, but the name was incorrectly listed on hi... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,524 | In 1883, the City Hotel in Sunbury, Pennsylvania was the first building to be lit with Edison's three-wire system. The hotel was renamed The Hotel Edison upon Edison's return to the city on 1922. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,525 | In 1954, Lake Thomas A Edison in California was named after Edison to mark the 75th anniversary of the incandescent light bulb. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,526 | Edison was on hand to turn on the lights at the Hotel Edison in New York City when it opened in 1931. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,527 | Three bridges around the United States have been named in Edison's honor: the Edison Bridge in New Jersey, the Edison Bridge in Florida, and the Edison Bridge in Ohio. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,528 | In West Orange, New Jersey, the Glenmont estate is maintained and operated by the National Park Service as the Edison National Historic Site, as is his nearby laboratory and workshops including the reconstructed "Black Maria"—the world's first movie studio. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,529 | The Port Huron Museum, in Port Huron, Michigan, restored the original depot that Thomas Edison worked out of as a young news butcher. The depot has been named the Thomas Edison Depot Museum. The town has many Edison historical landmarks, including the graves of Edison's parents, and a monument along the St. Clair River... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,530 | In Detroit, the Edison Memorial Fountain in Grand Circus Park was created to honor his achievements. The limestone fountain was dedicated October 21, 1929, the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the light bulb. On the same night, The Edison Institute was dedicated in nearby Dearborn. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,531 | A bronze statue of Edison was placed in the National Statuary Hall Collection at the United States Capitol in 2016, with the formal dedication ceremony held on September 20 of that year. The Edison statue replaced one of 19th-century state governor William Allen that had been one of Ohio's two allowed contributions to ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,532 | The Edison Medal was created on February 11, 1904, by a group of Edison's friends and associates. Four years later the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), later IEEE, entered into an agreement with the group to present the medal as its highest award. The first medal was presented in 1909 to Elihu Thomson... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,533 | In the Netherlands, the major music awards are named the Edison Award after him. The award is an annual Dutch music prize, awarded for outstanding achievements in the music industry, and is one of the oldest music awards in the world, having been presented since 1960. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,534 | The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has awarded the Thomas A. Edison Patent Award since 1997 to individual patents that demonstrate a significant impact on the practice of mechanical engineering. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,535 | The United States Navy named the USS "Edison" (DD-439), a Gleaves class destroyer, in his honor in 1940. The ship was decommissioned a few months after the end of World War II. In 1962, the Navy commissioned USS "Thomas A. Edison" (SSBN-610), a fleet ballistic missile nuclear-powered submarine. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,536 | Thomas Edison has appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, television shows, comics and video games. His prolific inventing helped make him an icon, and he has made appearances in popular culture during his lifetime down to the present day. Edison is also portrayed in popular culture as an adversary... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,537 | On February 11, 2011, on what would have been Thomas Edison's 164th birthday, Google's homepage featured an animated Google Doodle commemorating his many inventions. When the cursor was hovered over the doodle, a series of mechanisms seemed to move, causing a light bulb to glow. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,538 | The following is a list of people who worked for Thomas Edison in his laboratories at Menlo Park or West Orange or at the subsidiary electrical businesses that he supervised. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29778 |
3,539 | Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the transition from the Classical period to the Roman... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,540 | Beethoven was born in Bonn. His musical talent was obvious at an early age. He was initially harshly and intensively taught by his father Johann van Beethoven. Beethoven was later taught by the composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe, under whose tutelage he published his first work, a set of keyboard variations... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,541 | His first major orchestral work, the First Symphony, premiered in 1800, and his first set of string quartets was published in 1801. Despite his hearing deteriorating during this period, he continued to conduct, premiering his Third and Fifth Symphonies in 1804 and 1808, respectively. His Violin Concerto appeared in 180... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,542 | After 1810, increasingly less socially involved, Beethoven composed many of his most admired works, including later symphonies, mature chamber music and the late piano sonatas. His only opera, "Fidelio", first performed in 1805, was revised to its final version in 1814. He composed "Missa solemnis" between 1819 and 182... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,543 | Beethoven was the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, a musician from the town of Mechelen in the Austrian Duchy of Brabant (in what is now the Flemish region of Belgium) who had moved to Bonn at the age of 21. Ludwig was employed as a bass singer at the court of Clemens August, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, eventually ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,544 | Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767; she was the daughter of Heinrich Keverich (1701–1751), who had been the head chef at the court of Johann IX Philipp von Walderdorff, Archbishop of Trier. Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn, at what is now the Beethoven House Museum, Bonnstrasse 20. There is no a... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,545 | Of the seven children born to Johann van Beethoven, only Ludwig, the second-born, and two younger brothers survived infancy. Kaspar Anton Karl (generally known as Karl) was born on 8 April 1774, and Nikolaus Johann (generally known as Johann), the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,546 | Beethoven's first music teacher was his father. He later had other local teachers: the court organist Gilles van den Eeden (d. 1782), Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer (a family friend, who provided keyboard tuition), Franz Rovantini (a relative, who instructed him in playing the violin and viola), and court concertmaster Fran... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,547 | In 1780 or 1781, Beethoven began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe. Neefe taught him composition; in March 1783 Beethoven's first published work appeared, a set of keyboard variations (WoO 63). Beethoven soon began working with Neefe as assistant organist, at first unpaid (178... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,548 | He was introduced in these years to several people who became important in his life. He often visited the cultivated von Breuning family, at whose home he taught piano to some of the children, and where the widowed Frau von Breuning offered him a motherly friendship. Here he also met Franz Wegeler, a young medical stud... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,549 | In the period 1785–90 there is virtually no record of Beethoven's activity as a composer. This may be attributed to the lukewarm response his initial publications had attracted, and also to ongoing problems in the Beethoven family. His mother died in 1787, shortly after Beethoven's first visit to Vienna, where he staye... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,550 | From 1790 to 1792, Beethoven composed several works (none were published at the time) showing a growing range and maturity. Musicologists have identified a theme similar to those of his Third Symphony in a set of variations written in 1791. It was perhaps on Neefe's recommendation that Beethoven received his first comm... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,551 | Beethoven was probably first introduced to Joseph Haydn in late 1790 when the latter was travelling to London and stopped in Bonn around Christmas time. A year and a half later, they met in Bonn on Haydn's return trip from London to Vienna in July 1792, when Beethoven played in the orchestra at the Redoute in Godesberg... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,552 | Beethoven left Bonn for Vienna in November 1792, amid rumours of war spilling out of France; he learned shortly after his arrival that his father had died. Over the next few years, Beethoven responded to the widespread feeling that he was a successor to the recently deceased Mozart by studying that master's work and wr... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,553 | He did not immediately set out to establish himself as a composer, but rather devoted himself to study and performance. Working under Haydn's direction, he sought to master counterpoint. He also studied violin under Ignaz Schuppanzigh. Early in this period, he also began receiving occasional instruction from Antonio Sa... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,554 | With Haydn's departure for England in 1794, Beethoven was expected by the Elector to return home to Bonn. He chose instead to remain in Vienna, continuing his instruction in counterpoint with Johann Albrechtsberger and other teachers. In any case, by this time it must have seemed clear to his employer that Bonn would f... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,555 | Assisted by his connections with Haydn and Waldstein, Beethoven began to develop a reputation as a performer and improviser in the salons of the Viennese nobility. His friend Nikolaus Simrock began publishing his compositions, starting with a set of keyboard variations on a theme of Dittersdorf (WoO 66). By 1793, he ha... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,556 | In 1795 Beethoven made his public debut in Vienna over three days, beginning with a performance of one of his own piano concertos on 29 March at the Burgtheater and ending with a Mozart concerto on 31 March, probably the D minor concerto for which he had written a cadenza soon after his arrival in Vienna. By this year ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,557 | Shortly after his public debut he arranged for the publication of the first of his compositions to which he assigned an opus number, the three piano trios, Opus 1. These works were dedicated to his patron Prince Lichnowsky, and were a financial success; Beethoven's profits were nearly sufficient to cover his living exp... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,558 | Beethoven composed his first six string quartets (Op. 18) between 1798 and 1800 (commissioned by, and dedicated to, Prince Lobkowitz). They were published in 1801. He also completed his Septet (Op. 20) in 1799, which was one of his most popular works during his lifetime. With premieres of his First and Second Symphonie... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,559 | In May 1799, he taught piano to the daughters of Hungarian Countess Anna Brunsvik. During this time, he fell in love with the younger daughter Josephine. Amongst his other students, from 1801 to 1805, he tutored Ferdinand Ries, who went on to become a composer and later wrote about their encounters. The young Carl Czer... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,560 | In the spring of 1801 he completed "The Creatures of Prometheus", a ballet. The work received numerous performances in 1801 and 1802, and he rushed to publish a piano arrangement to capitalise on its early popularity. In the spring of 1802 he completed the Second Symphony, intended for performance at a concert that was... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,561 | His business dealings with publishers also began to improve in 1802 when his brother Kaspar, who had previously assisted him casually, began to assume a larger role in the management of his affairs. In addition to negotiating higher prices for recently composed works, Kaspar also began selling some of his earlier unpub... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,562 | Beethoven told the English pianist Charles Neate (in 1815) that he dated his hearing loss from a fit in 1798 induced by a quarrel with a singer. During its gradual decline, his hearing was further impeded by a severe form of tinnitus. As early as 1801, he wrote to Wegeler and another friend Karl Amenda, describing his ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,563 | On the advice of his doctor, Beethoven moved to the small Austrian town of Heiligenstadt, just outside Vienna, from April to October 1802 in an attempt to come to terms with his condition. There he wrote the document now known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter to his brothers which records his thoughts of suicid... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,564 | Beethoven's hearing loss did not prevent him from composing music, but it made playing at concerts—an important source of income at this phase of his life—increasingly difficult. (It also contributed substantially to his social withdrawal.) Czerny remarked however that Beethoven could still hear speech and music normal... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,565 | Beethoven's return to Vienna from Heiligenstadt was marked by a change in musical style, and is now often designated as the start of his middle or "heroic" period, characterised by many original works composed on a grand scale. According to Carl Czerny, Beethoven said: "I am not satisfied with the work I have done so f... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,566 | Other middle period works extend in the same dramatic manner the musical language Beethoven had inherited. The Rasumovsky string quartets, and the "Waldstein" and "Appassionata" piano sonatas share the heroic spirit of the Third Symphony. Other works of this period include the Fourth through Eighth Symphonies, the orat... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,567 | During this time Beethoven's income came from publishing his works, from performances of them, and from his patrons, for whom he gave private performances and copies of works they commissioned for an exclusive period before their publication. Some of his early patrons, including Prince Lobkowitz and Prince Lichnowsky, ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,568 | His position at the Theater an der Wien was terminated when the theatre changed management in early 1804, and he was forced to move temporarily to the suburbs of Vienna with his friend Stephan von Breuning. This slowed work on "Leonore" (his original title for his opera), his largest work to date, for a time. It was de... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,569 | Despite this failure, Beethoven continued to attract recognition. In 1807 the musician and publisher Muzio Clementi secured the rights for publishing his works in England, and Haydn's former patron Prince Esterházy commissioned a mass (the Mass in C, Op. 86) for his wife's name-day. But he could not count on such recog... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,570 | In the autumn of 1808, after having been rejected for a position at the Royal Theatre, Beethoven had received an offer from Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte, then king of Westphalia, for a well-paid position as Kapellmeister at the court in Cassel. To persuade him to stay in Vienna, Archduke Rudolf, Prince Kinsky an... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,571 | The imminence of war reaching Vienna itself was felt in early 1809. In April, Beethoven completed writing his Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73, which the musicologist Alfred Einstein has described as "the apotheosis of the military concept" in Beethoven's music. Archduke Rudolf left the capital with the Imp... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,572 | At the end of 1809 Beethoven was commissioned to write incidental music for Goethe's play "Egmont". The result (an overture, and nine additional entractes and vocal pieces, Op. 84), which appeared in 1810, fitted well with Beethoven's heroic style and he became interested in Goethe, setting three of his poems as songs ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,573 | In the spring of 1811, Beethoven became seriously ill, having headaches and high fever. His doctor Johann Malfatti recommended him to take a cure at the spa of Teplitz (now Teplice in the Czech Republic), where he wrote two more overtures and sets of incidental music for dramas, this time by August von Kotzebue – "King... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,574 | While he was at Teplitz in 1812 he wrote a ten-page love letter to his "Immortal Beloved", which he never sent to its addressee. The identity of the intended recipient was long a subject of debate, although the musicologist Maynard Solomon has convincingly demonstrated that the intended recipient must have been Antonie... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,575 | All of these had been regarded by Beethoven as possible soulmates during his first decade in Vienna. Guicciardi, although she flirted with Beethoven, never had any serious interest in him and married Wenzel Robert von Gallenberg in November 1803. (Beethoven insisted to his later secretary and biographer, Anton Schindle... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,576 | Antonie (Toni) Brentano (née von Birkenstock), ten years younger than Beethoven, was the wife of Franz Brentano, the half-brother of Bettina Brentano, who provided Beethoven's introduction to the family. It would seem that Antonie and Beethoven had an affair during 1811–1812. Antonie left Vienna with her husband in lat... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,577 | After 1812 there are no reports of any romantic liaisons of Beethoven; it is, however, clear from his correspondence of the period and, later, from the conversation books, that he would occasionally meet with prostitutes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,578 | In early 1813 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, notably when dining. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,579 | Family issues may have played a part in this. Beethoven had visited his brother Johann at the end of October 1812. He wished to end Johann's cohabitation with Therese Obermayer, a woman who already had an illegitimate child. He was unable to convince Johann to end the relationship and appealed to the local civic and re... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,580 | The illness and eventual death of his brother Kaspar from tuberculosis became an increasing concern. Kaspar had been ill for some time; in 1813 Beethoven lent him 1500 florins, to procure the repayment of which he was ultimately led to complex legal measures. After Kaspar died on 15 November 1815, Beethoven immediately... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,581 | Beethoven was finally motivated to begin significant composition again in June 1813, when news arrived of Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Vitoria by a coalition led by the Duke of Wellington. The inventor Mälzel persuaded him to write a work commemorating the event for his mechanical instrument the Panharmonicon. Th... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,582 | Beethoven's renewed popularity led to demands for a revival of "Fidelio", which, in its third revised version, was also well received at its July opening in Vienna, and was frequently staged there during the following years. Beethoven's publishers, Artaria, commissioned the 20-year old Moscheles to prepare a piano scor... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,583 | In April and May 1814, playing in his "Archduke" Trio, Beethoven made his last public appearances as a soloist. The composer Louis Spohr noted: "the piano was badly out of tune, which Beethoven minded little, since he did not hear it ... there was scarcely anything left of the virtuosity of the artist ... I was deeply ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,584 | His 1815 compositions include an expressive second setting of the poem "An die Hoffnung" (Op. 94) in 1815. Compared to its first setting in 1805 (a gift for Josephine Brunsvik), it was "far more dramatic ... The entire spirit is that of an operatic scena." But his energy seemed to be dropping: apart from these works, h... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,585 | Between 1815 and 1819 Beethoven's output dropped again to a level unique in his mature life. He attributed part of this to a lengthy illness (he called it an inflammatory fever) that he had for more than a year, starting in October 1816. His biographer Maynard Solomon suggests it is also doubtless a consequence of the ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,586 | By early 1818 Beethoven's health had improved, and his nephew Karl, now aged 11, moved in with him in January (although within a year Karl's mother had won him back in the courts). By now Beethoven's hearing had again seriously deteriorated, necessitating Beethoven and his interlocutors writing in notebooks to carry ou... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,587 | Despite the time occupied by his ongoing legal struggles over Karl, which involved continuing extensive correspondence and lobbying, two events sparked off Beethoven's major composition projects in 1819. The first was the announcement of Archduke Rudolf's promotion to Cardinal-Archbishop as Archbishop of Olomouc (now i... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,588 | Beethoven's determination over the following years to write the "Mass" for Rudolf was not motivated by any devout Catholicism. Although he had been born a Catholic, the form of religion as practised at the court in Bonn where he grew up was, in the words of Maynard Solomon, "a compromise ideology that permitted a relat... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,589 | Beethoven's status was confirmed by the series of "Concerts sprituels" given in Vienna by the choirmaster Franz Xaver Gebauer in the 1819/1820 and 1820/1821 seasons, during which all eight of his symphonies to date, plus the oratorio "Christus" and the Mass in C, were performed. Beethoven was typically underwhelmed: wh... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,590 | It was in 1819 that Beethoven was first approached by the publisher Moritz Schlesinger who won the suspicious composer round, whilst visiting him at Mödling, by procuring for him a plate of roast veal. One consequence of this was that Schlesinger was to secure Beethoven's three last piano sonatas and his final quartets... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,591 | The start of 1821 saw Beethoven once again in poor health, having rheumatism and jaundice. Despite this he continued work on the remaining piano sonatas he had promised to Schlesinger (the Sonata in A flat major Op. 110 was published in December), and on the Mass. In early 1822 Beethoven sought a reconciliation with hi... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,592 | During 1822, Anton Schindler, who in 1840 became one of Beethoven's earliest and most influential (but not always reliable) biographers, began to work as the composer's unpaid secretary. He was later to claim that he had been a member of Beethoven's circle since 1814, but there is no evidence for this. Cooper suggests ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,593 | The year 1823 saw the completion of three notable works, all of which had occupied Beethoven for some years, namely the "Missa solemnis", the Ninth Symphony and the "Diabelli Variations". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,594 | Beethoven at last presented the manuscript of the completed "Missa" to Rudolph on 19 March (more than a year after the archduke's enthronement as archbishop). He was not however in a hurry to get it published or performed as he had formed a notion that he could profitably sell manuscripts of the work to various courts ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,595 | Beethoven had become critical of the Viennese reception of his works. He told the visiting Johann Friedrich Rochlitz in 1822:You will hear nothing of me here ... "Fidelio"? They cannot give it, nor do they want to listen to it. The symphonies? They have no time for them. My concertos? Everyone grinds out only the stuff... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,596 | Beethoven then turned to writing the string quartets for Galitzin, despite failing health. The first of these, the quartet in E♭ major, Op. 127 was premiered by the Schuppanzigh Quartet in March 1825. While writing the next, the quartet in A minor, Op. 132, in April 1825, he was struck by a sudden illness. Recuperating... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,597 | Beethoven's relations with his nephew Karl had continued to be stormy; Beethoven's letters to him were demanding and reproachful. In August, Karl, who had been seeing his mother again against Beethoven's wishes, attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head. He survived and after discharge from hospital went to rec... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,598 | On his return journey to Vienna from Gneixendorf in December 1826, illness struck Beethoven again. He was attended until his death by Dr. Andreas Wawruch, who throughout December noticed symptoms including fever, jaundice and dropsy, with swollen limbs, coughing and breathing difficulties. Several operations were carri... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
3,599 | Karl stayed by Beethoven's bedside during December, but left after the beginning of January to join the army at Iglau and did not see his uncle again, although he wrote to him shortly afterwards: "My dear father ... I am living in contentment and regret only that I am separated from you." Immediately following Karl's d... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17914 |
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