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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Happy Birthday, Beethoven

It's too late to send Beethoven a card, I guess, but his God-given talent produced works that remain worthy of honor over 175 years since his death.

One tune, taken from the Ninth Symphony, is commonly used in hymnals (although hymnals, themselves, seem to be going out of style, more's the pity) for "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee." Here's a Wikimedia Commons sound file (.0gg format) of his popular Für Elise.

Someone else is more widely known for a "Hallelujah Chorus," but Beethoven wrote one, too. Here's one of many YouTube versions. The most common phrase, in English, anyway, is "Praise the Lord!" Amen.

Thanks for reading. Listen to Beethoven.

2 comments:

Pilgrim said...

Many years ago, I took piano lessons for a year and a half, and played "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee," and had to memorize Fur Elise and Fur somebody else.

It is too bad these hymns have been disappearing. The words and melodies to the new worship music doesn't stay in my head. The old hymns used to get me through the week.

Martin LaBar said...

Yes, it's too bad. Among other things, we are cutting ourselves off from our history, and losing some important by often dropping anything with more than two verses.