Opening Night: Beethovens Symphony #5 Case Assignment (Case Study Sample)

Opening Night: Beethoven Symphony No.5
Author
Institution
Ludwig Beethoven was a rare talent in the art of music composition. He was skillful pianist, conductor, and composer. He lived in Vienna, where life expectancy was low. Men had a life expectancy of between thirty six and forty years; and women had their lifespan at between forty one and forty five years. Beethoven lived up to the age of fifty six years. Perhaps his success in attaining such an ‘old’ age was as a result of his environment, which offered him a chance to lead a life that he desired as a maestro in music.
There was music everywhere in Vienna. For the Viennese people, a rich artistic life was a common experience for them at every social level of the society. There were many recreational musicians who purposed to get entertainment from playing instruments and singing together in private meetings. Apart from this group of individuals, there were only two official opera houses and churches adding to the wealth of entertainment of the people through music.
Despite this rich and musically motivated environment, actual public music concerts were few. Moreover, there were neither regular tours nor performances by symphony orchestra, and there were no structural facilities like a public halls built for such concerts. For this reason, Beethoven engaged himself by composing his music, and performing in private concerts and recitals that were sponsored by his aristocratic patrons. He tried hard to give concerts, though it was not as easy as his delivery of lessons. He witnessed different levels of success whenever he tried. He devoted his work to clients who would exclusively buy his work for their own practice, and selling his older works to publishers.
As a musical genius, he observed that the traditional style of composing music in the symphonic genre sustained some predictable conventions such as beginning loudly and having several movements of specifically varied moods. Beethoven wanted to craft something unique in symphony. He used his understanding of his Viennese peers to know that they would appreciate his new and exceptional technique. His conviction was based on the fact that he would be using a conventional form, the symphony, that they understood well. Beethoven wanted the public to get live public performances by musicians with an ensemble of instruments containing brass, string, wood wind and percussion instruments. Schindler quotes him saying: “If you hear a marching band, is your soul exalted? No, you march. If you hear a waltz, you dance. If you hear a mass, you take communion. It is the power of music to carry one directly into the mental state of the composer. The listener has no choice. It is like hypnotism”.
In the 18th and part of the 19th Century in Vienna, concerts were referred to as academies. These academy concerts were one time performances by accomplished individuals who wanted to showcase their abilities in the field of music. In addition, these were characterized by huge expectations of uniqueness in skill being showcased by the prodigy holding the concert. Beethoven was accomplished for such academies and after few tours over time, he wanted to bring out his prowess in a public and symbolic concert in Vienna. He secured space that was enough to accommodate an audience of several hundreds of people so that he succeeds in paying the expenses involved.
Beethoven settled on a famous theatre: An Der Wien, for the concert that he slotted on a Thursday: Twenty second day of December in 1808. Beethoven preferred this venue for his academy because of its large size and magnificent vista. Besides, Vienna being an aristocratic city, with a high population of the nobility, he had to make the concert worth his while and the comfort of his audience. He also understood that...