Beethoven’s Natures
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Aaron S. Allen, Associate Professor of Musicology and Director, Environment & Sustainability Program (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: Beethoven loved nature. The composer was not entirely unusual in this regard: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart before him admired birds and wrote pastoral music (cf. Beckerman 1991: 93-102; Heartz 1991: 107-115), and Gustav Mahler after him was actively engaged in experiencing and representing nature (cf. Johnson 2005: 23-36; Peattie 2002: 185-198). Nor were these German musicians unique in their engagement with the natural world; from musical and philosophical engagements with birds throughout medieval Europe (cf. Leach 2007), to American composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (cf. Von Glahn 2003, 20l3), and from places beyond the West and to nonhuman species (cf. Feld 1982, Martinelli 2009), humans have had a deep and wide fascination with connecting musk and sound with the natural world-even if the explicitly named field of ecomusicology is only a relatively recent phenomenon.1 As an icon of Western musical culture in general and German culture in particular, Beethoven's love of nature has a significant, if sometimes overlooked, place in his biography, music, and reception. Examining this situation contributes to understanding the role of ecological thought in German culture.
Beethoven’s Natures
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Created on 1/27/2021
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Ecological Thought in German Literature and Culture, edited by Gabriele Dürbeck, Urte Stobbe, Hubert Zapf, and Evi Zemanek (Lexington Books, 2017), 371-386
- Language: English
- Date: 2017
- Keywords
- Ludwig van Beethoven, ecomusicology, German culture, Pastoral Symphony