# Beethoven is the Worst Composer: An Homage



## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

I mean, really, what's so great about him anyway? Just because some deaf guy writes nine symphonies doesn't mean that everyone else has to do it. And it doesn't make him special.

Look at that fifth symphony. Man, what an overrated piece of nonsense. Fate knocking at the door? Give me a break. And then there's the Ninth. I'm not even going there. You thought the last eight symphonies were bad. And just to make things worse, he throws in a chorus and a quartet of soloists so we can suffer for the last twenty minutes or so. Ode to Joy? Ode to Bombastic Finales, more like.

This dude should really take a back seat for a while. Let the other composers have a turn, will ya?

Egotistical jerk.


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

I'm glad someone got around to it.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Sorry - did you say something?






Civilised discourse - what can beat it?


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

You do know this is satire, right? :lol:


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

It's not just symphonies he screwed up. You ever sit down and listen to those string quartets? There's like a dozen of them, and some of them have like ten movements. One of them even sucks so bad it's actually called "Gross Fugue." That's something I wouldn't want to google with the safe search off. Maybe if he could've actually heard it he could've written something like "Pleasant Fugue." And that's just the one movement. Sheesh, dude. Get a life. Throw out half a dozen of those string quartets and write a cello concerto or a clarinet quintet, like a real composer.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Celloman said:


> You do know this is satire, right? :lol:


You did know my reply was ironic, right?


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

science said:


> It's not just symphonies he screwed up. You ever sit down and listen to those string quartets? There's like a dozen of them, and some of them have like ten movements. One of them even sucks so bad it's actually called "Gross Fugue." That's something I wouldn't want to google with the safe search off. Maybe if he could've actually heard it he could've written something like "Pleasant Fugue." And that's just the one movement. Sheesh, dude. Get a life. Throw out half a dozen of those string quartets and write a cello concerto or a clarinet quintet, like a real composer.


Yeah, and you should hear his sacred music. What a messe.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Missa Solemnis. Listening to this overrated drool makes us very solemn, indeed.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

And was damn ugly! .


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Yeah, a face that only a violist could love.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Any composer who continues to modulate after the recap of a sonata is doing something wrong.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

p.s. Um, Mr. Beethoven, the title says "Symphony in C _Minor_." You might want to double check the key of your last movement.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Ingenue said:


> You did know my reply was ironic, right?


You do know that this reply to your reply to my first reply is doubly ironic with a sardonic twist, right?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Of course, though I prefer a twist of lemon, myself.

What really *gets* me about Beethoven is why did he have to pick a name that's doesn't sound like it's spelled?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Ingenue said:


> Of course, though I prefer a twist of lemon, myself.
> 
> What really *gets* me about Beethoven is why did he have to pick a name that's doesn't sound like it's spelled?


Beeth-oven isn't all that far off. Chopin reads like what _clavichorder_ is supposed to do every day. The thing with Beethoven is all those WoO pieces. They destroy all vestiges of orderliness. As _Kh_ keeps telling us, we must have order.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ingenue said:


> What really *gets* me about Beethoven is why did he have to pick a name that's doesn't sound like it's spelled?


Not only that, but his name isn't spelled like it sounds. Doubleplusbad!


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

No wonder he wrote such bad music. Look, the guy was deaf. His cats must have been deaf, too, from him banging on the piano so hard.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Celloman said:


> No wonder he wrote such bad music. Look, the guy was deaf. His cats must have been deaf, too, from him banging on the piano so hard.


He even used hammers on the piano keys and not just his fingers, thus the Hammerklavier Sonata. Totally uncivilised.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Celloman said:


> Egotistical jerk.


I like egotistical jerks!

And Beethoven actually wasn't one of them. Thus I don't like him. :tiphat:


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Beethoven didn't even come up with his own names for his compositions, for the most part. The man was uncreative.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Yeah, terrible! Only nine symphonies better than anyone else's. 

Couldn't even keep a servant as he had a habit of throwing chairs at them.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

Well I feel sorry for Elise!!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Some profound Beethoven quotes:

"Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there a dropped hammer." --John Ruskin

"Beethoven's last quartets were written by a deaf man and should only be listened to by a deaf man." --Thomas Beecham

Having had Beethoven's Sixth Symphony adapted for _Fantasia_, Walt Disney commented, "Gee! This'll make Beethoven." --Quoted by Marshall McLuhan

"I love Beethoven, especially the poems." --Ringo Starr


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

science said:


> It's not just symphonies he screwed up. You ever sit down and listen to those string quartets? There's like a dozen of them, and some of them have like ten movements. One of them even sucks so bad it's actually called "Gross Fugue." That's something I wouldn't want to google with the safe search off. Maybe if he could've actually heard it he could've written something like "Pleasant Fugue." And that's just the one movement. Sheesh, dude. Get a life. Throw out half a dozen of those string quartets and write a cello concerto or a clarinet quintet, like a real composer.


Hah! One guy at another forum I visit wrote a review on John Butt's recording of Bach's St. John Passion and Googled it later so he could show the review to a member who asked about the recording: The end result was that he swore that he was never going to Google 'Butt Passion' with the safe search off ever again.:lol:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The guy had a mouth on him too. "Was ich scheisse ist besser als du je gedacht" indeed!


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Beethoven could hardly make a dedication without retracting it. The man was fickle.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Too bad he had no artistic integrity. He tried 32 times to make a successful sonata...


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Yeah, and what's with the 2-movement "sonatas"? The man was lazy.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I can think of no other composer who has composed such ugly music which is still consumed and so admired.

Beethoven composed some of the ugliest music I have ever heard. 

The two ugly "masterworks" which are near to enshrined, up on the highest pedestals, as some of the greatest music which people continue to consume and adore?

The Hammerklavier Sonata & the Grosse Fugue: (For which is uglier, ugliest, I would call it a tie.) 

I can think of no other contenders for this dubious place of the ugly distinction: Beethoven is one great composer who wrote, it seems, great and seriously ugly music from time to time.

... and I'm serious.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Could barely write an overture. How many times did he try with his opera? It's still a standing joke...


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

PetrB said:


> I can think of no other composer who has composed such ugly music which is still consumed and so admired.
> 
> Beethoven composed some of the ugliest music I have ever heard.
> 
> ...


Not "from time to time". At the same time.

[If it can be misinterpreted, it will be]


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Thank God he wrote ONE good piece - _Wellington's Victory_. I only wish the original panharmonicon scoring was still used.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

And I have to grant him this: he did inspire Chuck Berry.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

And here's a guy who wrote an Erotica Symphony which isn't sexy at all, a Pastoral Symphony which isn't religious, a Choral Fantasia where you have to wait until the thing is about 90% done before the chorus begins to sing, a Tempest sonata which has no storm effects at all, and a Ghost trio which isn't in the least bit scary.

At least the Pathetic sonata is appropriately named.


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## OldFashionedGirl (Jul 21, 2013)

God Beethoven will punish all of you.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MagneticGhost said:


> Well I feel sorry for Elise!!


Of course you meant to write, "Well I feel sorry für Elise!"


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Hilltroll72 said:


> [If it can be misinterpreted, it will be]


You mean the misinterpreted rather like every other self-taught pianist goes at Beethoven, Chopin, etc. kind of interpreted? Because that is downright scary ;-)


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

Celloman said:


> I mean, really, what's so great about him anyway? Just because some deaf guy writes nine symphonies doesn't mean that everyone else has to do it. And it doesn't make him special.
> 
> Look at that fifth symphony. Man, what an overrated piece of nonsense. Fate knocking at the door? Give me a break. And then there's the Ninth. I'm not even going there. You thought the last eight symphonies were bad. And just to make things worse, he throws in a chorus and a quartet of soloists so we can suffer for the last twenty minutes or so. Ode to Joy? Ode to Bombastic Finales, more like.
> 
> ...


Agree. I mean I was playing the first movement of the _Grand Septet in E flat major_ op.20 arranged for the piano by Liszt (S465), the other day and realised what rubbish of invention it was. At least Liszt took the liberty of arranging it for piano and made it so a teeny-weeny bit better that way. Thank goodness other folks came along to improve's Beethoven's unoriginal scribbles.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Spohr nailed the 9th Symphony, "...the three first movements of which seem to me...worse than all the eight previous symphonies.The fourth movement is, in my opinion, so monstrous and tasteless and, in its grasp of Schiller's Ode, so trivial that I cannot understand how...Beethoven could have written it."


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## Guest (Aug 6, 2013)

I bet a lot of people don't realize he ripped of his nom de plume from these guys:






What a poser! If only his violin concerto were this good!


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## musicphotogAnimal (Jul 24, 2012)

"Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and *cannot make a good soup*." -sarcasm- A soup connoisseur, now is he? I'd much rather he stuck to writing music.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

musicphotogAnimal said:


> "Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and *cannot make a good soup*." -sarcasm- A soup connoisseur, now is he? I'd much rather he stuck to writing music.


Soupwise, Franz Berwald was totally unable to make a living writing music. He wrote to a friend, "Music cooks a meager soup." He ended up managing a glass factory and a prosthetic limb business.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

To be fair, what can you expect from a composer who is named after a dog?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I am too partial to dominant-to-tonic thrusts to call Beethoven a bad composer. 

V-I-V-I-V-I-V-I-I-I-I-I!!!

Never gets old.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

waldvogel said:


> And I have to grant him this: he did inspire Chuck Berry.


Or did Chuck Berry inspire him? In which case we need to credit him as the inspiration for any of this music. But actually I might have got the timeline wrong there.

After all Beethoven starred in his films some decades later and may have been aware of Chuck.









Which brings me to my main point, I love dogs but surely to expect great classical music from them isn't realistic.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Beethoven - the guy who supposedly learned nothing from Haydn. He just copied out Op. 20 and several London symphonies, 
that´s all.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

PetrB said:


> I can think of no other composer who has composed such ugly music which is still consumed and so admired.
> 
> Beethoven composed some of the ugliest music I have ever heard.
> 
> ...


I hope you're not,I might think less of you.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Spohr nailed the 9th Symphony, "...the three first movements of which seem to me...worse than all the eight previous symphonies.The fourth movement is, in my opinion, so monstrous and tasteless and, in its grasp of Schiller's Ode, so trivial that I cannot understand how...Beethoven could have written it."


I've loved that quote since first reading it. It feels like Spohr was sacrificing his future reputation for some altruistic purpose that the passage of time has let fall away.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

You can act like it was intentional all you want, Ludwig... but the horn in the Eroica Symphony comes in four measures too early.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

Dude knew to write some themes, but he was lazy. Restating all those themes over and over... it gets boring. Ludwig, admit it, you've just run out of ideas. Symphony 5th is the worst.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Couchie said:


> I am too partial to dominant-to-tonic thrusts to call Beethoven a bad composer.
> 
> V-I-V-I-V-I-V-I-I-I-I-I!!!
> 
> Never gets old.


But that infamous ending is a joke, and jokes, upon repetition, do get old.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> But that infamous ending is a joke, and jokes, upon repetition, do get old.


The only thing wrong with that "infamous ending" is that it's far too short. Couchie got it right.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

The 5th symphony was so bad that the Allies chopped it down into Morse code during World War II. They used Beethoven like scrap metal.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

The Heiligenstooge Testament: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CEYQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theosociety.org%2Fpasadena%2Fsunrise%2F28-78-9%2Fs28n07p244_the-heiligenstadt-testament.htm&ei=k20BUvyaK7PCyAGpl4G4DA&usg=AFQjCNG_GeYLaMLtVvrvJ_ntlVBPMSCn8A&bvm=bv.50310824,d.aWc&cad=rja

"Born with a passionate and excitable temperament, keenly susceptible to the pleasures of society[...]"

Yep. That pretty much sums it up.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I think Bernstein unmasks this faker once for all:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Eschbeg said:


> You can act like it was intentional all you want, Ludwig... but the horn in the Eroica Symphony comes in four measures too early.


Yeah, I meant it to be like that. (Does anybody really believe that?) :lol:


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

He called himself Ludwig *van* Beethoven, trying to pretend he was Dutch. Phony.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

Well no composer is going to write great music always.Also some people are just haters that is all.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

mtmailey said:


> Well no composer is going to write great music always.


Except Bach.

But Beethoven isn't Bach is he now? oooooooh burn!


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

starry said:


> He called himself Ludwig *van* Beethoven, trying to pretend he was Dutch. Phony.


Even worse, sometimes he referred to himself as Louis or Luigi, pretending to be Dutch-French or Dutch-Italian. Got all entangled in his own lies, huh?


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Yeah--and most of the time he couldn't even get his own age right. The man was dishonest.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> Beethoven - the guy who supposedly learned nothing from Haydn. He just copied out Op. 20 and several London symphonies,
> that´s all.


Take the class, refinement, good taste, structure, subtlety, wittiness, and charm out of Haydn and you're left with Beethoven.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Couchie said:


> Take the class, refinement, good taste, structure, subtlety, wittiness, and charm out of Haydn and you're left with Beethoven.


Oh, the pain...the pain...is intense.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Couchie said:


> Take the class, refinement, good taste, structure, subtlety, wittiness, and charm out of Haydn and you're left with Beethoven.


However, if then you just add a gift for melody and a good disposition, at least you'll have Schubert.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Oh, the pain...the pain...is intense.


The thread really got the job done, rite?


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

science said:


> It's not just symphonies he screwed up. You ever sit down and listen to those string quartets? There's like a dozen of them, and some of them have like ten movements. One of them even sucks so bad it's actually called "Gross Fugue." That's something I wouldn't want to google with the safe search off. Maybe if he could've actually heard it he could've written something like "Pleasant Fugue." And that's just the one movement. Sheesh, dude. Get a life. Throw out half a dozen of those string quartets and write a cello concerto or a clarinet quintet, like a real composer.


Well the later quartets were not that great like the middle quartets.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

HAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Oh this thread is funny


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

I can't believe this got to page five.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

You're right. Beethoven is by far the worst composer ever . Not only that, Shakespeare is the worst playwright , Dostoyevsky is the worst novelist with Tolstoy coming close , Albert Einstein is the worst physicist ever, Rolls Royce makes the world's crappiest cars , The Mona Lisa is the crappiest painting ever ,
the Taj Mahal is the worst piece of architecture , Michaelngelo is the world's worst sculptor,
Picasso couldn't paint if his life depended on it , Pablo Casals sucked as a cellist , Luciano Pavarotti had hideously ugly tenor voice , Tiger Woods is the worst golfer ever , and so on . They all sucked big time .







:lol: :lol: :lol:


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Typical Beethoven--always has to drag everyone else down to his level.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

This thread hit all the right notes, no pun intended!

Remember when Groucho arrives at the opera house two hours late in _A Night at the Opera_? He complains to the cab driver, saying, "On account of you, I nearly heard the opera! Now drive around again, slowly, and none of your backtalking!" Well, that's what I'm like when I go to a Beethoven concert. If I actually get there early enough to hear any music, I'm too early.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Beethoven faked his own deafness to gain sympathy and adulation for working under hardship.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2013/sep/19/tchaikovsky-not-gay-more-musical-shocks


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

superhorn said:


> Picasso couldn't paint if his life depended on it ,











We really need homage threads for all the folks you mentioned in your post...


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