# the duels



## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

life was harder at Romantic era....

http://silentstring.blogspot.com/2012/01/classical-composer-duels.html

Beethoven got the most report of duels:

Beethoven vs Joseph Wolfl


> Beethoven had a bad habit of being good at what he did. That made him a bigger target for other performers trying to carve reputations out of his hide. Wolfl and Beethoven were friends at one time, both having dedicated various works to each other. But Wolfl apparently became malcontent with his status as second in pianistic greatness behind Beethoven, and thus challenged Beethoven to a piano duel, in 1799, at the home of Count Wetzlar, one of Beethoven's admirers and patrons, and a patron of artists in general.
> 
> By the time the duel took place, Wolfl had made a point of playing many recitals and concerts all over Europe, especially in Germany and Austria, where Beethoven would catch wind of his rise, for the sole purpose of building the hype. It worked. Beethoven was informed by his friend, Aton Schindler, that he was no longer without performance competitors. Wolfl was about 6 feet tall and had gigantic hands that could stretch a thirteenth on the piano. Beethoven was only 5'3 and 3/4" and could just manage a tenth. He countered this as all good pianists must by using the pedal to sustain the first note and then quickly hitting the second note, if two notes of a tenth or more have to be spanned. Good pedaling technique renders the results nearly indistinguishable.
> 
> But the duel played out in much the same fashion as that of the next year, versus Steibelt. Beethoven and Wolfl were evenly matched after the first round, but in the second and third, Beethoven wiped the floor with Wolfl. When it came to improvisation and sight-reading, Beethoven had no equal during his life. Wolfl was much less spoken of in Austria after this encounter.


(fyi, Wolfl got some nice string quartet CD lately....)

Abbe Gelinek vs. Ludwig van Beethoven


> It wouldn't have made it onto this list were it not for the comment Gelinek made, when asked if he thought he could beat Beethoven in a piano duel. "I'll make mincemeat of him!"
> 
> Well, it was the other way around. Gelinek turned out not to be all that formidable an opponent, although his nerves may have gotten the best of him. After the first round, in which both played their own best, and most difficult works, Gelinek looked a little paler to the audience, probably because Beethoven chose his Sonata 19 in G minor, Op. 49.
> 
> Once the improvisations began, Gelinek couldn't seem to get his head in the game, and Beethoven walked all over him. Gelinek simply left the room when Beethoven began the third round.


Daniel Steibelt vs. Beethoven


> Is Beethoven less than 31 years old? Then he can still hear himself play. Don't challenge him. If only Steibelt's foresight had been as clear as our hindsight. He is referred to as "a most unvirtuous virtuoso," well-known during his day for spreading false rumors, cheating, stealing money from concert receipts, sleeping with married women, and, among other things, telling everyone he met, even announcing before and after his concert recitals, that Beethoven was a hack performer and scared of him.
> 
> Beethoven, for his part, really didn't care what Steibelt had to say, until Steibelt finally worked up the nerve to challenge him to a duel. This happened in May 1800, when Steibelt traveled to Vienna for the sole purpose of beating Beethoven at his own game. The question most often asked in history class is, "What the hell was he thinking?!"
> 
> ...


no doubt he won it all

http://listverse.com/2011/12/27/7-classical-piano-duels/


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Bravo to all involved. Classical music should reinstate this tradition. We need more hype.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

That little Louis sure did kick a lot of a$$es!


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

I thought you meant duels with pistols when I opened this thread lol


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## humanbean (Mar 5, 2011)

There is a scene in a Beethoven BBC documentary (one of my favorites) that has a rather entertaining reenactment of the Steibelt duel (though some details of the anecdotes were changed, such as the tune that Beethoven played: improvised variations on Der Vogelfänger from The Magic Flute). The scene starts at around 1:01:


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