Beethoven and Goethe
"Beethoven had already read and studied Goethe’s works intensively during his youth in Bonn, long before their first personal encounter. His first Goethe settings were produced around 1790. Beethoven announced his Music to Egmont in a first letter to the poet in the spring of 1811 with the following words: “I am only able to approach you with the greatest veneration with an inexpressably deep feeling for your glorious creations.” He had already set 18 texts by Goethe, two others were to follow. Goethe therefore occupies a privileged position in Beethoven’s vocal works."
Read more about this topic: Beethoven And His Contemporaries
Famous quotes containing the words beethoven and/or goethe:
“Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both! Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both.”
—Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881)
“If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)