German composer and pianist Beethoven is widely considered to be one of the world’s greatest musical geniuses of all time. His music ranks amongst the most performed of the classical repertoire and he remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music. His innovative compositions combine vocals and instruments, widening the scope of sonata, symphony, concerto and quartet. He is the crucial transitional figure connecting the Classical and Romantic ages of Western music.
Beethoven’s work is divided into early, middle, and late periods. In the early period he forged his craft. His middle period, sometimes characterized as heroic, shows an individual development from the "classical" styles of Hayden and Mozart. During that period, despite becoming increasingly deaf, he composed an opera, six symphonies, four solo concerti, five string quartets, six-string sonatas, seven piano sonatas, five sets of piano variations, four overtures, four trios, two sextets and 72 songs. In terms of the astonishing output of superlatively complex, original and beautiful music, this period in Beethoven's life is unrivaled by any of any other composer in history.
In his late period he extended his innovations in musical form and expression. His Ninth Symphony, one of the first examples of a choral symphony was written in his last years, and his late string quartets of 1825–26 are amongst his final achievements.
Beethoven raised instrumental music to the highest plane of art. His most notable innovation in the symphony and quartet is the replacement of the minuet by the more dynamic scherzo; he enriched both the orchestra and the quartet with a new range of sonority and variety of texture, and their forms are often greatly expanded. With the concerto, his formal innovations were equally influential, as with the entry of a solo instrument before an orchestral ritornello in the Fourth and Fifth piano concerti.
After some months of bedridden illness Beethoven died in 1827.
The Benôit Bégin family lived at 54 Elmwood Ave., Outremont, QC, Canada in 1971. He was the founder of the Institute d'Urbanism, and Professor of Landscape and Urban Planning at the Université de Montréal, was a close friend of John Schreiber for many years and collaborated with him on the Mirabel Airport project.
One of the most successful Jamaican-American pop stars in history, singer, songwriter, activist, and actor Harry Belafonte was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Trinidadian Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s. His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the first million-selling LP by a single artist. Belafonte is known for his recording of "The Banana Boat Song", with its signature lyric "Day-O". He has recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards. He has also starred in several films, including Otto Preminger's hit musical Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), and Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow (1959).
Born in Harlem, New York Belafonte lived for several years with one of his grandmothers in Jamaica. He returned to New York and attended high school there, then served in the Navy during WW II. After the war he worked as a janitor's assistant when a tenant gave him, as a gratuity, two tickets to see the American Negro Theater which inspired him to study acting.
Belafonte has released 30 studio albums and eight live albums and has achieved critical and commercial success. He has three Grammy Awards (including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors and in 1994 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
An early supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, he was a confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for political and humanitarian causes, such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement and USA for Africa. Since 1987, he has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Belafonte acts as the American Civil Liberties Union celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues. In 2014, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy's 6th Annual Governors Awards.
Shortly after his 93rd birthday in March, 2020 the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture announced it had acquired Belafonte's vast personal archive.
