Beethoven was one of the first composers to work with a metronome, he became a sort of enthusiastic of the invention and went back to all the symphonies he had already composed (8 out of 9) to mark for posterity the tempos to which they should be played
The great creative outburst in Vienna began with the Jewish population being made full citizens with the right to vote and ended with Nazi Germany encamping and destroying them.
I am sure that whether you listen to classical music or not, you’ve heard a lot of his compositions in much the same way that whether you have read Shakespeare or not you know a lot of his plays. And so, like me, have a certain fascination with this harbinger of so much to do with being famous even without mentioning his music.
Shorter’s quartet plus a dozen odd violins, two more upright bassists, a big bass drum and a half dozen wind instruments all coming together to unload what sounds to my untrained ears to be a mix of Glenn Branca and Shostakovitch, oh and, Bernard Hermann. I keep on expecting Anthony Perkins to stab me in the shower.
