Dictionary of Music - Birding America

ell 37composers of Western music. Beethoven’s father wasa musician, as was one of his grandfathers, andhe studied the piano, violin, viola, harpsichord,and organ. He was playing in the court orchestrain his native city of Bonn by the time he wasthirteen. He then studied in Vienna with Haydn andwith a lesser composer, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger(1736–1809), giving his first public pianoconcert there in 1795. Beethoven remained in Viennafor the rest of his life. When he was about thirty yearsold he began to lose his hearing. Gradually forced togive up his career as a pianist, he devoted himselfmore and more to composing. Although he wastotally deaf by about 1824, this handicap did not preventhim from composing some of his greatest worksduring the remaining three years of his life. Unlikemany composers, Beethoven was almost as highlyregarded during his lifetime as he was after his death.Beethoven’s work—a large body of compositionsin virtually every form—bridges the classic andromantic periods of music history. Some authoritiesconsider him primarily a classicist and others aromanticist, but few deny that he was very original inall he undertook. His work is often divided into threeperiods. To the first period, in which Beethovenlargely followed the classical models of Mozart andHaydn, belong the compositions written up to about1800, the most important of which are his first twosymphonies, the first three of his five piano concertos,twelve of his thirty-two piano sonatas, six of hissixteen string quartets, and the Kreutzer Sonata forviolin. In his second period (c. 1800–c. 1815)Beethoven pushed the classical forms to their furthestextreme, especially in his methods of developmentof themes. To this period belong his symphoniesnos. 3 through 8, the opera Fidelio, the fourLeonore overtures, incidental music for the playEgmont, Piano Concertos nos. 4 and 5, his ViolinConcerto, fifteen piano sonatas, the Eroica Variationsfor piano, and five string quartets. The last period (c.1815–1827) saw the composition of his Symphonyno. 9 (called the Choral Symphony, because of itschoral finale), the Missa Solemnis (Mass), five pianosonatas, the Diabelli Variations for piano, and thelast five string quartets. In these last works, especiallyin the string quartets, Beethoven took more andmore liberties with the classic structure, using six orseven movements instead of the traditional four,exploring changes of harmony, transforming the formerlyplayful scherzo movement into a seriousmockery, and foreshadowing the coming romanticstyle with more songlike, emotionally expressivemelodies. (See also CONCERTO; QUARTET; SONATA.)bel A unit for measuring the relative intensity(loudness) of sound. One bel is the difference inloudness produced by a tenfold increase in soundenergy. Because the bel (named for Alexander GrahamBell) represents a very large change in loudness,it is more usual to employ the decibel, which isequal to one-tenth of a bel. The smallest change inloudness that can be detected by the average person’sear is about one decibel.It is also customary to state the actual intensitiesof sounds in decibels by comparing their loudness toa very soft reference level. On this scale, the loudnessof musical sounds ranges from about twenty-fivedecibels (the softest violin tone) to about one hundreddecibels (the full orchestra playing very loudly).bel canto (bel kän′tô) Italian: “beautiful singing.”A term for a style of singing that emphasizes a beautiful,even tone and brilliant, agile technique. Thisstyle is associated with Italian opera of the eighteenthand early nineteenth centuries, and is still used forItalian vocal music of that time, such as operas byBellini, Donizetti, and Rossini. However, the termitself is employed quite loosely and is open to varyinginterpretations, so it is of limited usefulness.belebend (be lā′bənt) German. Also, belebt (bəlābt′). A direction to perform in a lively, animatedmanner.belebtSee BELEBEND.bell 1 A musical instrument made of wood ormetal and consisting of a hollow body that is struckeither by a clapper placed inside it or by a mallet orhammer from the outside. Bells have been usedsince ancient times by peoples all over the world, formagic, religious purposes, signaling, and other uses.Their main use in modern times is as church bells. Abell can sound only one pitch (which depends on its