The Greatest Musician of the Napoleonic Era
Know your Bachs from your Bocherrini? Know your vibratto from your virtuouso?
We debate the greatest musician of the Napoleonic era, as Tansy Robson, Josh Provan, Jacqueline Reiter and Rachael Stark join me to champion some masters of the musical arts.
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A quite passionate new podcasts, and I had to admit, I did not know Bocherrini at all. I would have picked Mozart as well, as Jacqueline Reiter did, but honestly, can he be counted for the Napoleonic Era? I have my doubts, and that would leave Beethoven as clear winner, at least in my opinion, well in case you have a downer just listen to Freude schöner Götterfunke - Ode an die Freude.
I admit to snickering when I saw the announcement for this alleged debate, both because identifying and choosing "The Greatest" anything and anyone is too inane for words, and generally speaking it is a waste of academic effort.
Your points regarding the fleeting nature of fame are well-taken, as are the wildly different contemporaneous and more modern opinions regarding composers/musicians of the Napoleonic or indeed any other era. Sometimes the urge to discuss things in a quasi-scholarly venue leads to general silliness.