Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms

In English �Cockney� rhyming slang �Brahms and Liszt� means something like �Not quite sober�, however, interestingly, it was these two erstwhile composers rather than their mentor, Beethoven, who was celebrated by this expression, still used today, due to its alcoholic connotations and rhyming obviousness.



At the beginning if the 19th Century, classical music, like today, was enjoyed by many different types of people, and names like Brahms, Schubert and Liszt (even less sober it would seem from �Cockney� rhyming slang) were as common names on the street as they were in the boudoirs. Music was popular everywhere.



In the more purely musical environs of both then, and indeed today, much is talked of Beethoven and Mozart. Most musicians, and many �experts� will tell you, upon cogitation, that Beethoven was possibly only able to write after he became deaf because of the inspiration given to him by Mozart and probably Bach as well.



A musician, and many other people who know, may say that Mozart was technically the better musician in term of counterpoint, harmony, melody and the music theory of the latter 18th Century. They would, though go on to say that Beethoven took the �baton� over from Mozart and relayed it on to the type of greater things that Mozart may have been able to achieve had he not died at the age of 37, and would most certainly have approved of.



Certainly, in the first period of his life, Mozart was a serious inspiration to Beethoven. He really wanted to take lessons from him but, as Mozart had died at a young age, Haydn readily became his joint-inspiration when he became his teacher.



Brahms was a keen follower of Beethoven�s music and Liszt was a pupil for a while in the early 1800�s. Beethoven and Brahms, who died in 1897 are now buried next to each other in Vienna�s cemetery. Schubert, who died within a couple of years of Beethoven, and laid next door to him in his previous cemetery, was also moved to the same place in 1888. Strauss makes it four next to each other. Perhaps the originator of the school of music now called "romantic" and his keen followers can rest in more peace than they were able to do during their lives.



Inspiration. That is what Beethoven and Brahms had in common and in mind when they composed their music. Times were changing. Beethoven, originally a supporter of Napoleon, turned against him, particularly when Vienna was being bombarded and he was sure he would lose the rest of his hearing. The History of the European 19th Century lead to a rearrangement of attitudes, and in music.



Rather like Beethoven �taking over the baton� from Mozart it became Brahms� turn to do the same for Beethoven, and adapt his music to this century of artistic change in all fields. Literature and novels were different; art was different; life was different; and, of course, the music was different.



The composers of the mid-18th Century took great store of the new gifts they had been given by their predecessors and in their musical legacy.



Beethoven started the �romantic� style of composers at the time, and much of the European music of that era echo�s Beethoven�s attempts to create a new and deeper understanding of what was possible instrumentally.