Essential Questions (all students answer these questions)
What is Romanticism? (It has many definitions, and is many things.)
Music that fits in the romanticism genre shows a lot of feelings and is more flexible and soft and requires more imagination and self-interpretation from the artist.
How does your subject fit into the world of Romanticism (their work, their life)
Beethoven is considered to be one of the starters of romanticism by making his compositions not as rigid and have as many rules as the classical composers used.
Are there elements or aspects of your subject that are not romantic in nature?
His early work was more of the classical era, and his personality is definitely not romantic, because he was known for being strong minded and stubborn among other things.
Topic Questions
What composers influenced Beethoven? Did he meet them?
His early works were influenced by Haydn and Mozart, and he did meet them.
What was Beethoven like as a person?
Beethoven didn’t have an easy life and he was a person with a strong personality and his own opinions and could sometimes be hard to get along with, but the people around him often said he was a man of noble ideas and he was respected.
What was there about Beethoven's music that brought the element of romanticism into music
His music was a crossing point between the classical era to the romantic era and unlike his classical music before, his music used more emotion and had more originality.
Why is "The Eroica Symphony" important in music history
The Eroica Symphony was originally supposed to be dedicated to Napoleon but when Beethoven became unhappy with Napoleon’s imperial ambitions, he scratched out Napoleon’s name so violently he ruined the paper and ended up dedicating the symphony to his patron Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz.
What happened to Beethoven in the second half of his life that made his music become
romantic?
After he became deaf, he probably couldn't compose music that was as strict, because romantic music leaves more to the imagination and is more flexible, so it was probably easier for him to compose.
The first part of the symphony can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFltqVS8d9I
