Lost Beethoven Piece Performed After 2 Centuries

Tech assist enhances classical experience

(NEWSER) - In a bid to win over multitaskers and technophobes, the National Symphony Orchestra will tweet along with tonight's performance of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, the Washington Post reports. Audience members with appropriate gadgets can sit in a special section on the lawn at Wolf Trap, in suburban Virginia, and follow posts from the conductor. More»

New symphony a 'call to action' on the environment: DB Grady

(NEWSER) - Before YouTube or Twitter, composing a symphony was a great way to get your revolution going—the French one inspired Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, and Shostakovich wrote such controversial music that he would wait outside for the Soviet regime to arrest him so his family wouldn't be disturbed. "History is replete with examples of classical music acting not as a passive reflection of the times, but as a force for social change," writes DB Grady at the Atlantic . It can still be so in the 21st century, he argues. More»

Composer saw creatures emerging from piano

(NEWSER) - The 19th-century composer Frédéric Chopin suffered frightening hallucinations, ranging from ghosts to creatures coming out of his piano. Now, researchers believe the visions may have been prompted by temporal lobe epilepsy, the Daily Telegraph reports. The disease can cause short, detailed hallucinations, and “could easily have been overlooked by Chopin’s doctors,” researchers note in Medical Humanities . More»

(NEWSER) - Two pieces by a 7- or 8-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart went undiscovered for more than a century because they were written in his father Leopold’s hand, the New York Times reports. Austrian researchers have disclosed new details about the works after announcing the finding in July: The music consists of parts of a piano prelude and a concerto, and was hastily scrawled in the back of Mozart’s sister’s practice book. More»

Two piano pieces surface in Austria

(NEWSER) - Two pieces of music found in the vaults of the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, Austria, have been confirmed as the work of Mozart himself, the BBC reports. The compositions are for solo piano, but other details are being kept under wraps until a formal announcement next month, said a foundation spokeswoman. They will eventually be performed on Mozart's original fortepiano. More»