Beethoven & Jefferson/Franklin

[jesjenmom]

I need help. During a college course I took (I audited it with my daughter taking it for credit) the Prof. told us that Jefferson & Franklin visited Beethoven and requested music to celebrate the birth of a nation of free men and brotherhood.

I was told the Triple Concerto was the result of that visit but I can NOT find any information on it and the Prof.is no longer around to ask.

Can anyone out there help me?

THANK YOU. :confused:

[Trumpetmaster]

Welcome to the pit Marcy....

here are some notes I found on the triple concerto.
I had never heard that Jefferson & Franklin visited Beethoven and the triple concerto was a result of that meeting....

http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven_triple_con.html

http://www.lvbeethoven.com/Oeuvres_Presentation/Presentation-Concerto-Triple.html

[Trumpetmaster]

Bones..... you out there?????

[Shapley]

I haven't found anything about that, but I found this interesting tidbit:

http://www.historynet.com/ah/bl-benjamin-franklin-inventor/

From utilitarian ideas to the world of art, Franklin was a force. Mozart and Beethoven wrote music for an instrument invented by Franklin, the glass armonica. The idea for the glass armonica was not something he had dreamed up out of the blue. Franklin loved music, enjoyed singing and played the harp, guitar and violin. During his stay in London, he heard a concert played on musical glasses and was delighted by the sound they made. The performer had a number of glasses on the table; each glass held a different amount of water that produced a different tone when he rubbed his wet finger over the rim. Franklin was “charmed by the sweetness of its tones and the music produced.” However, he thought the process was inefficient. The player’s finger had to run all around the rim of each glass and then had to jump to other glasses to play a melody. Furthermore, the glasses had to be filled precisely and tuned before each performance.

Taking up the challenge, Franklin experimented until he had produced a new instrument that he called the “armonica,” from the Italian word for harmony (not to be confused with the harmonica or mouth organ, which was invented some 50 years later). Instead of using drinking glasses on a table, Franklin’s armonica employed 37 glass bowls of varying sizes from 3 to 9 inches in diameter, “sufficient for three octaves with all the semitones.” Each bowl had a hole in the middle and was mounted close to its neighbor on an iron spindle. The spindle was laid horizontally in a wooden case and was rotated with the bowls by means of a foot treadle, like that in an old sewing machine. There was a narrow trough filled with water along the front of the case to enable the player to wet his finger. With the bowls revolving, the player could rub any bowl easily and rapidly -- since it was not necessary to move his finger around the rim -- and the fingers of both hands could be applied at the same time to give more complex sounds. Franklin had ground each bowl to give the desired tone, so that once tuned it would be unnecessary to have to tune it again.

“Its tones are incomparably sweet beyond any other; and they may be swelled and softened at pleasure by stronger or weaker pressure of the finger,” boasted Franklin. Apparently the public agreed. In Germany and Austria, Franklin’s fame for the armonica rivaled the reputation he had achieved for his electrical experiments and lightning rod. Marianne Davies, an accomplished musician, gave public performances on the armonica in England, Italy and Austria. At a recital for the imperial court in Vienna, Princess Marie Antoinette, soon-to-be queen of France, was so enthused she had Davies teach her to play it. The armonica was manufactured in London and sold across Europe. In America George Washington and Thomas Jefferson heard it played at a concert in Williamsburg, Va., and commented on how pleasing it was. Franklin enjoyed playing it while in France when he visited his beautiful friend, Madame Brillon, an accomplished musician and composer, who would accompany him on the pianoforte. Its ethereal, haunting notes with a touch of melancholy made it a favorite at weddings. One author wrote, “The ear of a mortal can perceive in its plaintive tones the echoes of a divine harmony.”

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

I did a little date checking. (The magic googlefinger strikes again!)

Benjamin Franklin died 1790.
Thomas Jefferson died in 1826.
Beethoven was born 17 Dec 1770, died 26 Mar 1827.

OK, there's some overlap. For the Prof's story to work, Beethoven would have had to compose the concerto before Franklins death in 1790; Beethoven would have been no older than 20 then. I don't think he was all that famous yet, but the Prof's story is not yet impossible. I'm beginning to disbelieve the "visit" story, but I don't know it to be a tall tale.

The date I find for the composition of the Triple Concerto (Opus 56) is 1803/1804. The Prof's story about the visit and the Concerto is getting less and less plausible. Either it was a long-delayed inspiration, or Franklin haunted Beethoven.

I think the Prof was pulling your leg.