The master

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770 in Bonn, Germany. His father and grandfather were musicians. Ludwig started learning the violin and the piano at a very early age. When he was only 13, he published his first composition. In 1787 he travelled to Vienna to study under Mozart, but returned to Bonn because his mother was dying. After her death he moved to Vienna, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1795 he gave his first public performance as a pianist, and it was a success.

In the late 1790s, Beethoven began to lose his hearing and by 1819 he was completely deaf. It was during this period that he wrote some of the most famous compositions like Moonlight, Pastoral, Emperor. After he became deaf, he continued to compose great music which was joyful and optimistic. In the later years, he was lonely and depressed and didn’t write much. Although he fell in love several times, he never married. Beethoven died of pneumonia on March 26, 1827. More than 10,000 people came to his funeral.

Beethoven was the first composer who used music to express deep feelings and such ideas as his belief in freedom and heroism. Even today he is, for many people, the greatest composer.

Notes: deaf [def] – глухой; a funeral – похороны

Sergey rachmaninoff

Sergey Rachmaninoff was an outstanding Russian composer and musician. He was born in 1873 not far from Novgorod and died in California in 1943, aged seventy. He studied at the Conservatories of St. Petersburg and Moscow. After the revolution, in 1917, he emigrated to the USA. His music is melodious and emotional. His greatest compositions are the Prelude, The Second and Third Piano Concertos and the Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini. As a pianist he toured the world extensively. He became famous with audiences around the world for his piano performances.

4.22 Read, memorize and act out the dialogue. Then talk about your music preferences using phrases in bold.

Rock and pop music

A: Do you like listening to music?

B: Sure.

A: What kind of music do you prefer?

B: It depends. Mostly rock and pop music, but sometimes classical and country music. And you?

A: As for me, I listen to all kinds of music, even the music my parents listen to. For example, the Beatles, a British pop group.

B: I also like the Beatles. Their music is based on rock and roll exported from the USA. But it is very different from any other American music.

A: Yes, you are right. It was the birth of a new pop culture. It influenced the musical culture of many countries. By the way, do you remember their names?

B: Of course, I do. George Harrison, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney. Do you know the names of any other British singers?

A: Naturally, Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones, Elton John and many others.

4.23 Read the text and say what main kinds of literature exist. Give examples of books written in different literary genres.

Literature

In the ancient oral traditions, before stories and poems were written down, literature had a mainly public function – mythic and religious. Oral literature included folk tales, legends, proverbs and ancient epics, such as the Greek Odyssey. Poetry had an advantage over prose those days – it was easier to memorize.

As literary works came to be preserved in writing, and then printed, their role became more private, as a means for the expression of emotions. There appeared lots of different literary genres. Among them are adventure stories, detective stories, biographies and autobiographies, fantasy, science fiction, novels, historical novels and others.

Prose is sometimes defined as “words in their best order” and poetry as “the best words in their best order”.

4.24 Here are the names of some famous writers and poets. Say what countries they are from:

Russia, England, Scotland, America, the Ukraine

William Shakespeare, Mikhail Lermontov, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle, Anton Chekhov, Ray Bradbury, Alexander Pushkin, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Ivan Turgenev, Taras Shevchenko, Robert Burns

4.25 Read the texts about two great writers and add more facts of their lives.