How old was Beethoven when he started losing his hearing? Around the age of 26, Beethoven began to hear that ringing and buzzing in his ears. In 1800, aged 30, he wrote from Vienna to a childhood friend - by then working as a doctor in Bonn - saying that he had been suffering for...
How old was Felix Mendelssohn when he died? Composer and director of music at Leipzig's Gewandhaus Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy died remarkably young, on 4 November 1847, at the age of38. Who killed Mozart? But todayAntonio Salieriis best remembered for something he probably didn't do. He's...
11.3 Frédéric Chopin Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period. Chopin’s music is really something else – it’s emotional, poetic, and delicate. “Nocturnes in B flat minor” is Chopin’s most famous piece, but he is also known for his preludes and etudes...
I once saw the old W. H. Auden, recently arrived in Oxford to retire to a cottage at Christchurch College, try to read his poetry from memory and soon stumble over his words to the point where he had irritably to have recourse to a book. This was already eccentric behavior in 1969....
Chapter 4 turns to the Germanic languages, with a concentration on Old English, the form of English between the time when it was brought to Britain by the Anglo-Saxons (fifth century ad) to the Norman Conquest in 1066. Modern English is a very different language from Greek and Latin, but...
year-old Polish man named Emil, who was living in temporary accommodation until his house was sold. He lost his wife in December due to COVID-19 and all he had left was the piano. And the reason why he played at 2: 00 pm every weekend was that he and his wife used to do that....
Unfortunately, this is not the Polish composer, but a rapper who appeared on a hip-hop song named "Circumstance," which was released in 2018. "Even if it did link to the correct Chopin, there are far more relevant composers to link to," Charles points out. Furthermore, ...