Beethoven, Day One / The Stupidly Difficult Map Quiz

Countdown to Beethoven's Birthday:

Beethoven's First Symphony

[What is this "Countdown to Beethoven's Birthday" you speak of?]

To our ears, Beethoven's freshman effort sounds like a better-than-average but fairly typical example of standard Classical-era (late 18th Century, more or less) fare. To hear it now, it could be late Mozart, who Beethoven admired. Or it could be Haydn, who was briefly Beethoven's composition tutor until he found out that young Ludwig was turning in pieces that he had written years earlier as his homework.

But even here at the beginning, Beethoven shows us his sassy side. That sequence of chords that opens the first movement sounds pretty tame to us, but apparently their lack of an obvious tonal center was pretty edgy stuff in 1800 Vienna. Also, this symphony is quite a bit longer than most Haydn/Mozart fare. Eventually, Beethoven is going to stretch the symphonic form to as much as three times its traditional length, and he's creeping in that direction right from the get-go. He's self-indulgent, but he's also got a lot of musical ideas to develop. In Beethoven, you'll never find much that feels like filler.

Happy Listening!

michael5000 presents:

The Stupidly Difficult Map Quiz

Sure, anybody can look at an outline map and identify the popular and distinctively-shaped countries like Chile, Sweden, the United States of America, and Uzbekistan. But it takes a real map stud to identify the obscure, shapeless nations. Are you up to the challenge? Come on! Let's see what you've got!

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As should be obvious, this falls more under the category of malicious prank than bona fide quiz. I'm just messin' with ya. If anybody could get a significant number of these, with or without an atlas, I'd be pretty damned impressed. But surely you have better things to do?